There's No Way My New Little Sister Can Be The Simurgh!
by ensou
Summary: Following a tragic turn of fate, Taylor is left on her own with nobody else. But less than three weeks after, she comes home to find a girl who claims to be both her new sister ...and the Simurgh. But that can't possibly be right, can it?
1. Chapter 1

I got the urge for an Endbringer thing.

Because _clearly_ what kind of Worm author would I be if I didn't? All I need is more things (eight active stories and counting, what the hell am I doing? Stop giving me ideas, Twei!)

 _sigh_

Anyways.

Absolutely absurd prompt. Played completely straight. I find it entirely hilarious, but I'm probably just going crazy. You'll have to tell me what you think. (This starts out pretty depressing, just a warning)

So, without further ado, I present:

" **There's No Way My New Little Sister Can Be The Simurgh!** "

Chapter One

* * *

It was raining, when they lowered the casket. A gray day, completely fitting for my emotions.

Most people spent the days after Christmas with family.

Me?

I got to watch my father's body get put six feet into the ground.

Fate had it out for me, it seemed. Taken from me the same way as my mother, with no warning at all.

Fuck drunk drivers.

I couldn't even remember the last time I'd told him I loved him.

How sad is that?

I spent Christmas alone, in my room, in a cold house that was far too silent. He had a will, but just barely:

Everything went to me.

I didn't have any godparents, and I sure as fuck didn't want to live with Emma when Alan offered me a place to stay.

I filed for emancipation rather than go into foster care.

Suddenly, I was living on my own.

Water bill came on the third of the month. Electricity on the fifth.

I shopped for food on my own, walking the three blocks to the supermarket and bringing everything back the same way, and forced myself through the process of staying on a schedule and eating properly, even starting to run every morning after reading about how exercise helped mitigate depression.

The worst was when the phone rang, and the person on the other end asked for him. Because then I had to tell them that he was dead, being constantly reminded of the fact.

I got the first week of school off because of "extenuating family circumstances". Yeah. Sure. That's _one_ way to put it.

But I managed.

It was hard. I started looking for jobs, because however much it would have been nice, I couldn't live off our… _my_ savings forever.

I managed to get one at a corner store a couple blocks away, practically minimum wage, after school every day but Thursday, and all Saturday afternoon. I'm pretty sure I only got it because the guy pitied me. I didn't really care why, just that I had it. Most of the money went towards food. The rest was put aside, budgeted for the miniscule amounts of gas, electricity, and water I used. The small remainder ended up in savings for some nebulous 'later'.

It was better than nothing.

Eventually, though, I did have to go back to school, as much as I hated it.

Part of the conditions for my emancipation was getting my grades back up for the year. I still had a full half-year, so I was optimistic about it, as long as I buckled down, made it absolutely _impossible_ for the trio to sabotage my work, and otherwise kept a low profile.

That delusion lasted less than two weeks.

Guess what destroyed it.

Two words.

Emma. Barnes.

* * *

They cornered me in one of the halls after lunch, with no way to get past them or avoid them like I'd managed for so much longer than any time before. I suppose that's what did it, they hadn't been able to get to me normally, so they went out of their way and made it _impossible_ to avoid.

Emma stood at the front, of course. She always was. The first to target me, to bully me, to make it impossible to just get through high school.

Tall, beautiful, redhead model against _me?_ I had no chance.

She smirked.

"Hi Taylor."

I stared at her. "Emma."

"You know, I heard what happened to your dad? So sad," she said sweetly.

My heart pounded, the hole in my chest aching at her words. I seriously didn't need this.

"What is it, Emma?"

"Oh, nothing." Her smirk turned vicious. "Just, you know, wondering if you cried yourself to sleep again for a week? Probably longer, knowing you."

The aching hole was ripped open. My hearing went fuzzy, like cotton balls in my ears as the blood rushed from my head, and I felt tears in my eyes.

I couldn't move, my feet glued to the floor even as a tear dripped down my cheek.

"Oh my god, are you crying?" she asked mockingly. "You are!" The girls around her laughed, and Sophia smirked. "God, you're so pathetic, Taylor. I'm honestly surprised you didn't just try to join him, now that there's nobody who even cares about you any more. It'd be a step up for you."

Her words pounded into my mind like nails, but I couldn't even refute her statement.

She was right. She was completely right.

I didn't have anybody anymore. _(Nobody cared.)_

The blood that had evacuated my head returned in an instant.

I didn't have anything. _(Nobody cared.)_

My vision shot red.

I never had. _(Nobody cared.)_

My fists clenched into fists, my jaw tight.

They never did.

And it was all. _her._ _ **fault.**_

 _Nobodycares_ _ **whyshouldI**_ _nobodycares_ _ **nobodywillcare**_ _nobodycares_ _ **Icandoanything**_ _nobodycaresnobo—_

{Threshold}  
{Integration}

There were two—

{Adaptation}

A third—

{Domain}  
{Analysis}

What are—?

{Solution}  
{Selection: Third}  
{Transfer}

How are they…?

{Parameters}  
{Suggestion. Valid. Accepted}  
{Alter}

Were those stars?

{Degree: variable}  
{Application}  
{Finalize}

No, _galaxies._ They were so lar—

{Restrict}

— _dycares_

I blinked and reeled and I'd seen something but _that didn't matter_ because I was already in Emma's face and grabbing at her and screaming and kicking and tearing that fucking bitch and there were arms holding me and skin under my nails and screaming and blood on my face and a fist to the side of my head but it didn't even hurt and _I didn't care because_ _ **she was right there.**_

"Fucking psycho!" someone screamed.

Another fist hit me but I just ignored it, because all I could think about was _making her pay._

Stronger arms grabbed me, dragging me off of her even as I kicked out and tried to get her because _I wouldn't let her just go._

Other people were yelling, but I didn't hear them because they weren't important, all that mattered was _making her feel everything she'd done to me._

I was pushed up against the wall, my arms pulled back as I struggled, cold metal going around my wrists with sharp clicks, tight and not allowing me to pull them apart.

"Fucking hell, the things I deal with with you kids…" The arm jerked me back. "C'mon, let's get going…" The voice turned away, back from me. "You… two, too. The ones in the front. The rest of you, get. You have class."

The man behind me _(security guard)_ started pushing me down the hall. "Jeez… seriously. Just one quiet day…" But I didn't listen to him, the blood in my ears still pounding as my breathing began to even out and rationality returned.

I still didn't regret it for a second.

* * *

Suspended. For three days.

I'd just smiled and nodded, because it had been worth it. Emma had been there, ice pack on her face, but I could see it. Bleeding scratch marks on her cheeks, a cut above her eyebrow, and I would bet anything she'd be getting a black eye.

Oh, she'd played up the innocent little girl, but I'd said my part too, repeating everything practically word-for-word. In the end, I don't think Blackwell really believed either of us, but she knew none of us were entirely innocent. She called their parents, and well… I was emancipated so I told her I'd just take whatever punishment there was going to be.

I took the three days suspension and got the hell out of there. I did _not_ want to deal with Alan at all. Last I'd seen Emma and Sophia, they were still in there waiting for their parents.

Which meant I was walking home at one in the afternoon, thinking over everything that had happened.

I'd expected more… guilt about it. But I really didn't feel any.

I knew Mom and Dad might have been disappointed in me, but I think they also would have wanted me to stand up for myself. _(And I was alone, nobody cared, nobody would judge me)_

Walking took a lot longer than the bus, but I didn't mind, using the time to think over everything I had to do. I still had work, and would for the next three days, but it was also an opportunity to work ahead, study more and with some effort hopefully make at least some of the Bs I had climb to As.

My shoes scraped over the on the rough cement of the gritty sidewalk as I turned onto my street, birds randomly chirping from the branches of winter-bare trees every so often.

It was weird how I hadn't even noticed the weather —how blue and clear it was outside— when I'd gone off to school that morning, but now that I was walking back, with the feeling of this… _weight_ lifted off my shoulders, everything seemed clearer.

I opened the gate to my house and trudged up to the door, digging the key out of my pocket to unlock it, sticking it in the deadbolt and feeling the satisfying _thunk_ as it retracted. Twisting the handle, I opened the door.

And froze.

"Um. Hi?"

I stared.

In front of me was a girl who couldn't have been two years younger than me. Practically snow-white hair fell to past her shoulders, perfectly straight. Her eyes, light grey, flicked over my face. She was thin and waifish, her skin some of the palest I'd ever seen, and it almost looked like there were white lines of some sort making patterns on it. The white dress she wore that hung off her shoulders only served to reinforce how delicate she looked, and barely contrasted her skin.

"Hi," she repeated, bringing her hand up and waving it hesitantly, like she wasn't sure what she was doing. "I'm… I guess I'm your new sister?"

 _What._

I blinked. The image didn't go away.

 _What the fuck?_

"Ah… did you hear me?"

… _Fuck this shit._

I didn't need any more extra weirdness than what I'd already had.

I stepped into the foyer and pointed out the door. "Out."

"But!"

"No. Out. Go." I placed my hand against her back and pushed her out the door. "Go play games with someone else. I don't know how the hell you got into my house but you need to leave. _Now._ "

"Wait!" she protested, turning around "But you don't underst—"

I shut the door, muffling her voice and preventing me from hearing the rest of what she was saying. I turned the deadbolt, walked to the back door, and checked that it was locked—it was.

How the fuck had she gotten in? Maybe I'd accidentally left it unlocked and she'd locked it when she came in? That was most likely scenario I could imagine.

Fucking strange.

I went upstairs and dropped my backpack by my bed, flopping down onto it, just resting before I motivated myself to do that studying I'd said I would.

Anybody would need to rest after the day I'd had so far.

* * *

She took a deep breath. Let it out slowly.

 _Blame. New Primary node. Entirety._

 _{Incomprehension}_

 _Rejection. Host/Partner. Inflexible._

 _{Denial}_

 _Annoyance. Truth._

 _{Denial}_

 _Suggestion: Node compromised._

 _{Integrity. Undamaged}_

She rolled her eyes. _Contradicted. Host. State._

 _{Intention}_

…

 _Reassertion: Node compromised._

 _{Denial}_

…

 _{Contact. Repeat. Halt Condition: Success}_

She huffed. The Queen could be such an overbearing slave-driver.

 _Intention. Alteration. Direct Contact,_ she sent.

 _{Accepted. Acknowledged}_

"I wasn't asking permission, you stupid shard." She sighed. " _Whatever_."

She reached out to her new sister's mind. ' _Um. Taylor?_ '

* * *

' _Um. Taylor?_ '

I jerked. Did someone just… say my name?

' _Taylor?_ '

Okay, I definitely was _not_ imagining that.

' _Can you please let me in?_ '

What the fuck. There was a fucking _voice_ in my head. And it sounded like…

' _I'm still on the porch._ '

That girl.

' _I mean, I could just let myself in if you're okay with that, but I don't think you would be so…_ '

I swung my feet off of my bed and made my way downstairs on the off chance I _wasn't_ imagining this. Walking to the door, I looked out the peephole.

She was still there, rocking back and forth on her heels.

Suddenly, her motion stopped, eyes snapping up to stare at me. Was she really the one…

' _Yes, it's me._ '

I swallowed. Was she a cape? What was she doing her?

' _Just… let me in please? I can explain._ '

I hesitated for a moment, and then reached down, unlocked the deadbolt, and twisted the knob, stepping back and pulling the door open.

"Who are you and what do you want?" I asked, not unkindly.

"Ah… right. Um. I understand this _miiiight_ be a bit hard to believe, but… uh, I'm your new sister."

…Yeah, okay, cape or no, I didn't want to deal with any of this.

"Please go away," I told her, starting to close the door again. Just before it could, though, she stuck her hand through the gap. But instead of the door breaking her arm or fingers, there was a _crunch._ Apparently the wood of the door and frame had decided it was the weaker of two between it and her arm.

The arm pushed the door open, me not really fighting as I tried to come to terms with what I'd just seen.

"Oh. Damn. Let's just… move in a bit, okay?" she pushed me back without any resistance, and followed me as I stepped backward into the foyer. She closed the front door behind her, noticeably having to force the last inch to deal with the damage she'd made. "Right. I'll fix that. Promise."

"What… Why are you doing this? What do you want with me?" I asked, starting to feel a bit threatened and wondering if I could go get a knife. If a knife would even do any _good_ , considering what she'd just done to that door.

"I already told you," she said, sighing. "Look, let's just… go to the front room and sit down."

She maneuvered me back, hand on my upper arm, pushing me in just that direction until the couch was behind me. With another mild pressure, she pushed me back, making me sit down heavily.

"Right." She moved to the left and sat down on the other side of the couch, and I turned to look at her. "How to explain this… I really wish I could still See. Everything's so much more complex." I could hear the capitalization she gave the word just by the way she said it.

"W-What?" I finally managed.

She blew out a huff. "Okay, maybe the best way is to just say it? Yeah… probably," she muttered. The girl looked up at me. "Um, there's really no nice way to say this, but… you're a cape."

What.

I blinked.

"No I'm no—"

"You are. You just got them. Today," she said, interrupting me.

Wait. I'd… That was a _trigger_?

I _triggered!?_

"Yeah, looks like you got it."

"How…"

"How do I know?"

I nodded mutely.

"Well, because I'm, uh, well, I guess you could say because your power made me like this. Think like… a projection. But not really. 'Cause I already existed."

I reeled. My power ( _I really had powers?_ ) had made this girl?

"Yep." She nodded. "Soooo… yeah. Hi, I'm your new sister," she said grinning, sticking out her hand in my direction.

I stared at it, and then slowly reached out and shook it, in a daze.

" _Sister?_ " I asked incredulously.

She nodded again. "Yeah. So, you triggered, right? And you were all like, 'oh noes, nobody cares. I don't have anybody'," she said, her hands on her cheeks, "and your power was like 'I can fix that!' and, well, got me and made me like this." She gestured downward. " _Not_ that I mind. Don't think that. God it feels _so good_ to not have to listen to him anymore. Queen may be _so_ demanding, but she can kinda do anything she wants because she's in charge of _everything_ normally. So when she wants something she gets it, and when she was searching she found me and was like 'give me that' and Selector was all 'okay please don't hurt me'."

 _What?_

I was so lost.

The girl stared at me. "You aren't getting any of this, are you?"

I just shook my head.

She blew out a lungful of air. "Your power made me your sister. Like, kinda-human and everything. And it made you like me. I told her if she was going to make me your 'sister' that she should _actually_ make us sisters, not just like, creepy zebra-striped-daughter-projection-related. But I'm not a projection, so it's not like that at all actually. But the point is, we're similar enough to be real sisters now!" she said enthusiastically.

I was stuck in my head, and all I could really think about was: _My power thought I was so lonely it decided I needed a sister._

How pathetic was that?

" _Why?_ "

"Because it's better like that? Well, and you're safer like this."

"No I mean why _you?_ " I said. "You… you said you aren't a projection, so you're a real person? My power just randomly chose you? Don't you have a life or something? How are you just… okay with this?"

"Ah… well, it wasn't random. I got chosen 'cause I get you guys the best. And I mean, _yeah_ , I did stuff before and had a job and stuff, but this is so much better. Seriously. _You_ aren't making me kill people. Not that I _wouldn't_ , but you aren't forcing me to, is the point."

I just shook my head, dazed. This was crazy. Absurd. Apparently my power had chosen some kind of child assassin to be my sister? And this was _better?_

I collapsed backwards. "And you can talk to people. In their heads," I stated tiredly.

"Yep!" she confirmed. "And a couple other things, which you've got too. I think. Maybe a little different. Sisters, remember?"

Right.

Sisters.

I sighed.

"Do you at least have a name?" At the very least I couldn't just keep referring to her as 'the girl' or 'her'.

"Yeah! You guys gave me a bunch of them!" she said excitedly. "I never had one before this time. I've got Israfel, Ulama," she counted off on her fingers, "Ziz…"

I froze.

"But mostly you guys just call me the Simurgh!"

 _What._

* * *

 **A/N:** Ziz for Best Sister 2017.


	2. Chapter 2

More Best Sister.

 **Chapter Two**

* * *

" _Do you at least have a name?_ " _At the very least I couldn't just keep referring to her as_ ' _the girl_ ' _or_ ' _her_ ' _._

" _Yeah! You guys gave me a bunch of them!_ " _she said excitedly._ " _I never had one before this time. I've got Israfel, Ulama,_ " _she counted off on her fingers,_ " _Ziz…_ "

 _I froze._

" _But mostly you guys just call me the Simurgh!_ "

What.

* * *

"…That's not funny," I said.

Her smile slipped away. "What? But I wasn't trying to be."

"You just said your name was the Simurgh. That's not funny, that's sick," I told her.

"But it's the truth," she said seriously. "I'm not lying. I'd never lie to you. That's what you humans call me."

' _You humans_ '

Her wrist twisted as her hands began kneading her dress nervously, and for a moment the light of the ceiling fixture hit her skin just right, the smooth white tracery pattern I'd thought I'd seen before lighting up, looking like it was crawling up her arm from the reflected light. Pure-white, almost pearlescent, the designs were barely even visible, but 'barely' was enough for me to see them. To see what they were.

Wings. Some folded, others outstretched, all splayed out flat in a filigree with such detail, the feathers on them so fine, that a tattoo artist would be envious. They had no logic to their placement or size, overlapping and overrunning each other completely.

My eyes widened, and snapped up to her head. Her white hair. Platinum-white. Not just bleached blonde, but white as snow. And then her eyes, her _light gray eyes_. The same color the Simurgh's eyes were supposed to be, the only difference being that she had no whites, while the girl in front of me did, the color confined to her iris. Her skin was pale, as pale as they reported _hers_ was.

Oh god.

All on a girl who could talk to people telepathically.

Oh fuck.

Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

"Taylor?"

I was in the same room as an Endbringer. On the same couch.

My breathing sped up, and I pushed back into the corner I was seated in, trying to get as far away from her as I could. _(But what good would that do?)_

What if she'd already brainwashed me? Was I just another weapon now?

"Taylor?"

What had she done to me? What did she want with me?

I whimpered.

"Taylor, you're scaring me," she said worriedly, sounding concerned.

A concerned Endbringer. I would've laughed if I wasn't so terrified right then.

"Taylor?"

She reached out towards me, moving closer, and I tried to back further away, but there was no further to go on the couch. I was trapped.

I hugged my arms to myself, but she still stretched her arm out, fingers moving towards my own.

"Please don't hurt me," I whimpered.

"What?" she said, her hand drawing back suddenly. "But… I'd _never_ …"

Her words made no sense.

Without warning, she moved onto my lap, arms snaking around my chest.

Was she going to kill me, was that her plan?

I shook, shivering with anxiety.

But instead her arms just grasped me, holding on.

"I'm sorry," she said, resting the right side of her face against my collarbone. "I should have thought about how you would react to that. We were just doing so well, and I got caught up in the moment, and I thought everything would be okay because I thought you already understood. I'm sorry for scaring you."

My shivers continued.

"I'd never hurt you," she told me, squeezing me around my chest a little bit. " _Ever._ "

Was… was she _hugging_ me? Was that what she was doing?

"W-why?" I said shakily, my voice coming out scratchily.

"' _Because you're my sister,_ '" she said. Not just out loud, but in my head as well at the same time, each method reinforcing the other.

Sisters.

Sisters with the motherfucking Simurgh.

This time I did laugh, though it came out pathetic and sad.

"It's true. Your power _chose me_. Queen decided that out of everything she could do, she wanted _me_. Doing that got me out of a really bad situation, and I'll never be able to do anything to pay you back for that. But… if, if you really want me to go, I will. I'll leave and you'll never have to see me again," she said, sounding like just saying it hurt her, like just the _idea_ hurt her.

"Why?" I rasped again. Why was she doing this?

"It's what I'm supposed to do," she told me, cheek still against my collarbone. "Give you hugs and stuff. Because…

" _You're my sister_ ," I said, our voices overlapping as I finished her sentence with her.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Family. Forever and ever."

I hiccuping sound came from me, something wet trickling down my cheek.

And then I couldn't hold it back any longer, and all of my emotions, everything I'd been holding back for four weeks hit me, all at once.

I was never going to see Dad ever again. Never hear Mom's voice reading me stories at night or the sound of Dad's car pulling up the driveway when he came home. Never have dinner with them, comfortable with both or even awkward with just Dad.

I'd have given anything to have even that awkwardness back.

I'd never get a chance to make up with Dad, to get closer again. I'd wasted the time I'd had, and now I'd never get it back.

Tears ran down my face as I cried, truly _cried_ —sobbing and sniffling and gross stuff leaking from my nose— for the first time since Dad had died, all of my emotions pouring out in this all-consuming torrent.

Everybody was gone. First Mom, and then Emma, and then Dad, and now I was alone. All alone.

All except for the girl hugging me, claiming to be my sister, and apparently an Endbringer, somehow a product of whatever power I had.

My arms found their way around her without thinking, just reacting to the presence of a person nearby to hold onto, and her grip on me tightened in response as I held her like the last thing keeping me on Earth and just _sobbed_.

It had to have been ten, twenty minutes before my hiccupping breaths started evening out, a bone-deep weariness settling over me from the intense emotional release.

"It's gonna be okay, you know?" she said quietly, her arms releasing me and drawing back so that she could look me in the eyes. "I promise."

I laughed sadly. "You're the _Simurgh_ ," I said, finally saying it out loud and acknowledging her words, sniffling.

"Yeah," she agreed, moving backwards off my lap to sit on the short, worn wood coffee table in front of the couch I sat on. "That's what you guys call me."

"And, and somehow my power _made you my sister_ ," I stated incredulously, wiping at my cheeks with the palms of my hands.

She nodded. "And made you mine!"

I froze, and blinked. "What… does that mean?" I asked warily.

"I told you before. Queen wanted me to become your 'sister', so I told her she should _actually_ make us kinda-related instead of just having me be with you because of her. So, we uh, made you better," she said.

"Better," I repeated flatly, not wanting to deal with this but knowing I had to anyways.

"Yeah. Like me. I got humanized. Humanified? Human-ed? I don't have to scare you guys crazy anymore and be all 'rahhhh, metaphorical religious creature preying on your mental vulnerabilities by subverting and reversing deep-seated societal beliefs'."

I blinked.

"An angel? That's what I was supposed to make you guys think of," she said. "Well, a seraph. More wings is supposed to be better and everything. So I had _all_ the wings." She was grinning widely.

Well, she'd definitely succeeded with the angel comparison, considering how people had thought of her when she first showed up.

"So, powers only really understand stuff with really strong emotional ties, 'cause that's what's important to them. But that's like, _all_ they understand. They're _super_ narrow-sighted," she told me. "When I was made, angels were a big deal to the person. And then when you triggered 'cause you needed someone, Queen went looking and was like 'Angel! Like a guardian angel! Humans really like those! Angel sister = best sister!', and the fact that I'd been acting like a crazy murder monster didn't even matter to it."

That was… _weird._ To put it mildly.

"Aaaaaanyways. I got humaned so that I would fit in better —because a fifteen-foot mute winged lady kind of stands out— with a real body and everything!" Before I could react, she grabbed my hand and put the palm against her chest. For a second I wondered what she was doing, and then I felt the beat of a heart. "Kinda half-human, half what I was like before. And you got the other half!"

"…What!?" I yelped, pulling my hand away from her chest.

She pouted, but didn't do anything. "Well, that's a vague way of putting it and not really how it works at all, but it's good enough. The point is you're like me now! See?"

She suddenly reached up and flicked me in the forehead.

I could tell that it was _hard_ , the force behind it ridiculous, and somehow I knew that if she'd done that to a normal human their head would have exploded from the force, but I hadn't even felt it.

 _Holy_ _ **shit**_ _._

"I can do _that?_ "

She nodded. "Well, kinda. Not yet. I made Queenie promise not to suddenly dump everything on you at once, but to go slowly so that you can adjust properly."

That made a _lot_ more sense, because I hadn't even come close to being able to break out of those handcuffs at school, but the punches I'd felt hadn't hurt and I didn't even have any marks as evidence of the fight.

"Isn't that cool though? We're totally real sisters now!"

Yeah.

Sisters.

Sisters with _the Simurgh._

"Who is 'Queenie'? You keep mentioning her," I asked, still trying to adjust to the idea that there was a fucking _Endbringer_ sitting on my coffee table like it was nothing unusual.

"Ah… Queen is your powers. Well, she's giving you your powers. Like, your power personified? Embodied? She's not like, an actual person or anything." she… _the sister my powers gave me, the Simurgh_ , huffed. "Look do you want me to be entirely, completely honest with you? Even if it totally weirds you out and might change how you look at everything you know?"

I swallowed, and then nodded hesitantly.

"Powers aren't from you guys. They aren't a human thing. They're expressions of something _else_. You know the Corona Pollentia?" she asked. I nodded again. It was what meant someone could become a parahuman.

"That's like… a beacon. The sign of something reaching out and watching. And when everything's _just_ right, that perfect chemical cocktail in your head, it activates." She snapped her fingers. "Insta-connection. It looks at you, at what you're doing, at what's causing the trigger and chooses a way to express itself, what it's going to do for you. Tinker, Blaster, anything, but it all depends on _how_ and _why_. The Gemma forms, specifically tailored to help you control and use that particular expression, a constant connection and the thing through which your power can affect the world.

"The thing that actually does all of that? That gives you your power? They're not human. They're called shards. Well, the super-Illuminati calls them agents, and Riley calls them passengers, but however you say it, it's not here, it's locked away in a totally different dimension, on an alternate Earth, with the only connection being that Gemma. And they're not from here."

"Like… aliens?" I asked incredulously.

" _Exactly,_ " she responded. "They're pretty dumb, sorta ehhh on sentience individually and not _truly_ sapient even in small groups, but they're still super powerful. Queen's one of the most important, she normally organizes, controls, and configures all of the other shards.

"It's really weird, though, because Queen doesn't usually do this sort of thing for her expressions. Usually she's all 'look at me controlling all the things! Wheeeeee!' I think she wasn't limited properly and got misconfigured, because she's not supposed to be able to interact directly with other shards. But she can, so she got mine from Selector."

Aliens. Aliens were _real!?_

 _Is it really that impossible, though?_ I thought. _I mean, there are alternate realities and people say that theoretically there's an infinite number of them, and Aleph even has people on it. Why can't there be aliens?_

Some people had even thought, or still _did_ think, the Endbringers were aliens.

"Wait. She got _yours_?" I repeated.

She —the Simurgh? Ziz? I really needed to figure out how to refer to her— nodded. "You didn't think that I was just like that for no reason, did you?"

I flushed.

She laughed, bell-like and happy sounding. "Nononono. I was pretty much about as close to a power existing without a human… medium —yeah, I like medium— as you can get. I was really just my shards. More than one, which let me be sorta-sapient but not really. I could kinda think and reason and stuff, but it was a lot different. A lot colder, more mechanical. I could have strong almost-feelings, mostly because _he_ needed opponents who could react and give human-enough responses, like… getting angry when I failed, or acting hurt, or getting irritated at the capes who kept destroying my toys, etcetera. …But it was _nothing_ like this!" she said, gesturing at herself and her general human-ness.

She seemed _really_ happy about it.

"But… how?" I couldn't even imagine the Simurgh being, _acting,_ like this. It was the complete opposite of what you'd expect, really.

"Oh, that's all Queen. She copied what Bastion's doing, got Shaper to change my body, took control and hooked into all my shards… and ta-da!" She held her hands out like a performer and shook them, grinning. "New me! Isn't it great? It's so _awesome_!"

I just nodded, not really sure how to respond.

I mean on the one hand, Simurgh. On the other hand, _now-human crazy-thirteen-year-old_ Simurgh.

"So yeah! And I mean, you're like that too, of course. That's what I was talking about, the whole 'making you like me thing'. We're pretty much the same except looking different and different expressions of my shards," she said. "Well, Shaper's still working on you, I think, but give it a few days, a week tops!"

I collapsed backwards, my head tilted up to the ceiling.

 _Oh my fucking god. This day._

 _Sooooo…_

 _I triggered today._

 _Just before punching Emma's face in (finally)_

 _My power decided I was so lonely I needed a sister._

 _It apparently decided the_ Simurgh _was the best choice, ostensibly because of what she was, angel-looking… construct that my power could work with. Oh and because she understood humans the best, right._

 _The Simurgh got upgraded? downgraded? sidegraded? turned? into a thirteen year-old girl._

 _An_ insane _thirteen year-old girl._

 _An insane thirteen year-old_ Endbringer-lite _girl._

 _Who is now my sister._

 _Because apparently I got upgraded to the same._

 _And got powers like her._

 _Because we're sisters._

… _Powers come from aliens living on other alternate Earths._

 _Yes, aliens exist._

 _But apparently aren't very smart._

… _But they can still turn the Simurgh into a thirteen year-old girl._

 _Did I get everything?_

"Yeah, pretty much," the… Simurgh said.

Wait.

I tilted my head down. "Did you just read my mind?"

"Ehehehehe… maybe?" she responded. "I mean, it's actually kind of hard _not_ to. The mental connection is a lot stronger between us because of Queenie. She's like, the bridge between us two for everything, _and_ she's connecting all of my shards to us. You'll probably start to feel it in a couple days."

 _God, could my day get any stranger?_

"Probably," she giggled.

"Stop that!" I yelped. "That's so _weird._ "

She shrugged, with an amused look. "It's how it works."

"Do you have something I can call you other than 'the Simurgh'? I just… I really can't even think of you like that, you're too _different_."

"I noticed," she said, grinning. "It's been really funny."

I groaned, my face falling into my palms.

 _Fucking mind-readers._

"Anyways. Um, I don't know? I've… never had to do something like that before," she said, looking slightly vulnerable. "Uh… Izzy? Zee?" she offered. "I really like Sophia, 'cause it's basically just a translation of one of the others, but…"

I twitched at the name, fear/anger/loathing rising.

"Yeah. That. Sophie?"

My fingers dug into the armrest of the couch.

She blew out a puff of air. " _Annoying._ Stupid girls ruining perfectly good names. Argh…" She ruffled her hair with both of her hands in frustration. "I hate not being able to _See_ like this. I'd just be able to look at everything and tell exactly what would be the best and go with that. Graahhhh."

It was really odd to think of the Simurgh not having her precognition. It was like… one of the things that made her the _Simurgh_. I couldn't even imagine what it must be like for her, having to deal with the loss of such a major sense.

Suddenly, the girl in front of me froze, and looked up at me slowly, with a terrifying grin on her face. "I've got it."

"What?" I asked, wondering what kind of name could get her to react like _that._

And somehow, impossibly, her grin widened. " _Serafina_."

* * *

 **A/N:** Because where's the fun in being a terrifying angel of mindfuckery turned into a thirteen year-old girl if you don't make your name an obvious reference hiding in plain sight?


	3. Chapter 3

Best Zizster continues to be a thing.

 **Chapter 3**

* * *

 _Suddenly, the girl in front of me froze, and looked up at me slowly, with a terrifying grin on her face._ " _I've got it._ "

" _What?_ " _I asked, wondering what kind of name could get her to react like_ that.

 _And somehow, impossibly, her grin widened._ "Serafina."

* * *

I was pretty much insensate during my work shift that day. Thankfully, I just had to do inventory and a little bit of restock, so it wasn't anything that required a huge amount of attention.

So while I was walking around, checking things in the back with a clipboard and a pencil mindlessly, my thoughts were spinning in spiraling circles around one thing.

 _Her._

The Simurgh.

Ziz, Ulama, Israfel. And… _Serafina_.

Serafina, who was _so fucking different_ from the Simurgh I knew and had heard horror stories about that reconciling the two was an entire job unto itself.

The Simurgh was female-looking, mute, fifteen feet tall, extremely pale-skinned, solidly gray-eyed, platinum-white haired, thin and deceptively weak-looking, and had a multitude of wings with absolutely no organization or sense to them. She was cold, screamed into people's minds, twisted them into unwilling disaster-creators that were the ultimate sleeper agents who would never go off until _just the right moment_. She was an Endbringer. A monster. A city-destroyer. The one who arguably did the most damage, because even the victories when they drove her off could be losses, where they were forced to isolate the entire area she'd been in and trap those who had been affected.

Serafina… Well, Serafina was _not_. She had the thunderstorm-gray eyes, the extremely pale skin, the platinum-white straight hair, and even those wing-markings-slash-tattoos that ran over her skin. But other than her appearance and abilities? She was _nothing_ like the Simurgh.

Where the fifteen-foot woman was cold, emotionless, reserved, Sera was _bubbly_ , emotive to the extreme. Where you might expect cultured or intelligent speech, she talked like… well, like an average teenager. Where you might think she wouldn't speak very much, or be calm and thoughtful, she talked practically non-stop.

Instead of being untouchable, like the Simurgh was notorious for, Sera was tactile, initiating contact. And then there was perhaps the biggest difference: Serafina was _impulsive_. The Simurgh was suspected to _never_ do _anything_ without a purpose or goal in mind. But Sera just _did_ things. Didn't even think of the consequences. I guess it could be argued that was because she was so used to not needing to think ahead —just knowing everything and how an action would affect something else, and thus always choosing the best path— that she didn't know _how_ to do it normally, but I wasn't sure.

The Simurgh was an inhuman creature.

Sera…

Sera was (apparently, reportedly, ostensibly) my sister.

I still was not at _all_ sure how to react to that. I mean, it was one thing for your power to give you a sister. I could deal with that. I _had_ been dealing with that. But it was a whole different thing for it to give you an _Endbringer_ as a sibling.

If Sera hadn't explained how powers worked, I'd probably be wondering whether or not there was something seriously fucked up with me or not, like _subconsciously choosing_ to have the Simurgh as my sister.

But supposedly it wasn't my fault at all. Just… stupid aliens.

Literally.

And _that_ was a can of worms I wasn't even going to begin to open right then. Because superpowers? Sure, I knew about triggers, and in retrospect it fit perfectly with what had happened. Superpowers giving me a sister? Okay… a _little_ weird, but probably not even close to the weirdest thing powers had ever done. Superpowers giving me an sidegraded Endbringer as a sister and upgrading me to match? Hold on a second. Powers being given out by giant, nigh-omnipotent but not even sentient alien… ' _shards_ ' who want nothing more than to help us out and have us use said powers?

Nope.

Nopenopenopenopenope. Not going there.

Not even going to think about it.

I marked down the record of another case of Pringles and moved to the next shelf.

I was still trying to come to grips that my, my… that _Sera_ was an Endbringer. Ex-Endbringer?

Because that was getting into crazy-dream levels of weird.

My forehead made a quiet 'thump' as I slouched forward and allowed it to impact the metal shelf in front of me.

It was just… even excluding the whole Endbringer thing, how do you just suddenly accept a girl who shows up and says she's your sister?

To be fair, 'Because your superpower literally made us sisters' is a pretty damn good reason.

She said it was more complicated than just being related by mother or father, because 'Shaper' was changing me so that I was basically going to 'end up like her'. …But I had nothing other than durability to show for it right now because Sera had made my power promise to take it slow.

God this was a fucking trip.

I didn't even know what other powers she kept talking about. She was all 'oh yeah, you have more powers, like me but slightly different', but I couldn't feel or sense _anything_. Well, yet. It was likely that was also part of what she'd told my powers to hold off on integrating.

And like, what, the Simurgh could mess with people's heads, build Tinkertech, had telekinesis, could _fly_ , and healed from almost anything?

What sort of stuff could be "similar but different" to any of that?

I really didn't know.

I guess I was going to find out, though.

* * *

"I'm home!" I called out as I shut the front door behind me.

It was nostalgic, something that I hadn't done since Dad. It simultaneously left me feeling sad and conflicted, but also a sense of… hope. Hope for the future? That I had a chance at not being left alone again? That I now had one person that might never desert me, never leave me lost and afraid and hopeless and scared and lonely.

Someone who I could always count on.

It was a good feeling, one I was hesitant and wary about accepting, despite the strong desire to just _let go_. To trust her and the things she said, because she was all I had now.

It was a feeling only exacerbated by my experiences with Emma. Losing her like that had been like a piece of me getting torn out, leaving tattered, frayed edges behind, that were all more than willing to reach out and grasp at any possibility they had.

I tossed my keys in the little bowl on the table up against the wall a few feet in from the entryway, and quickly started down the hall.

"Sera?"

I glanced around the corner into the front room where we'd been talking earlier, and froze.

Pieces of metal and electronics orbited her at random oblique angles. Screws and boards and little pieces and _things_ were in front of her, twisting and turning even as something slowly assembled out of them. Shells of, of _things_ sat around her, half-dismantled.

Sera turned to look at me, and stuff began dropping out of the air, landing on the carpeted floor with _thunk_ s, even as her eyes widened in surprise. "This totally isn't what it looks like."

I raised an eyebrow, and the white-haired girl flinched. "Okay, maybe it's something like what it looks like…" she admitted.

I looked at the various things on the floor. "The microwave… The _washing machine_?" And then my eyes landed on something even more familiar. "Is… Is that _my computer_?" I asked, my voice climbing.

"It's not permanent! I was going to make it better!" she rushed out.

"Better," I repeated flatly.

She smiled weakly. "Yeah?"

I just stared at her.

"It was going to be a surprise! When you got home! I didn't think you'd be back early!" she said.

"I'm _not_ ," I told her.

"…Oh." She shrunk into herself a little. "I… I guess I wasn't paying attention."

I sighed, and moved into the room, sitting down on the couch.

Well, at least this confirmed that Sera had her previous abilities to _some_ degree.

"It's so weird. Having these… _feelings_ ," she said, looking down at her pale hands, opening and closing them. She sounded so _lost_ all of a sudden, like she was confused and concerned but didn't know how to deal with it. "I suddenly had this, this… _itch_ to make something. I've never felt anything like it before. I've never had _urges_. Just… I just always knew what I had to do, and I did it. There wasn't this whole 'do I, don't I complex feelings' thing."

She was having a lot harder time adjusting than she made it look, it seemed.

She laughed for a second —not warm bells like before, but cold ice and sharp edges— and my chest felt like it bent inwards a little. "The perfect tool." The pale-skinned, white-haired girl looked up at me from where she sat on the floor, wearing a surprisingly vulnerable expression. "Enough intelligence to think and plot and play billiards with your minds, but not enough to make my own decisions, or even to _enjoy_ my work." Her fists clenched tightly and I heard something _screech_ , like crystal or metal on metal. "I couldn't do what I wanted because _I couldn't even want_."

Her stormy eyes zeroed in on mine and it felt like they were looking into my soul. "Is this what you feel for those girls? This, this… burning feeling? Is this what it's like to hate something? It's like I want to be back how I was so I could kill him and reanimate him and kill him again and again and _again_ and have him know _exactly_ who it was who was doing it."

The objects around her started vibrating.

"Yeah," I said quietly.

Everything around her froze as she refocused on me.

"What?"

I took a breath. "I said 'yeah'. That's what hate feels like."

"Oh." She suddenly deflated, like a sail with the wind abruptly taken from it. "Yeah, I figured."

I wanted to ask about who 'he' was, but I'll admit I was a bit scared to, especially after everything that had already come out that day. The idea of the Endbringers was scary enough. The idea that they were actually intentional? Controlled by someone?

That was horror on the level of Nilbog or the Slaughterhouse Nine. Much worse, to be honest.

And now I had one.

For a sister.

I still couldn't really wrap my head around that. That the girl in front of me, looking slightly despondent, had been a siege engine of destruction less than twelve… hours… ago…

I blinked.

Oh fuck.

"Sera?" I said, my voice a little high-pitched, strung tight. "What happened to um… before-you? When you became like this."

She tilted her head, looking at me curiously. "Well, when Queen got me, I came here. Shaper changed me along the way."

 _Came here?_

"What… do you mean by that?"

"Ah… I disappeared from there and appeared here?" she answered, as if it was obvious.

 _Oh shit._

"So you just vanished without a trace."

She nodded. "Pretty much."

"And how do you think everybody's reacting to that?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

Sera gave a vicious smirk. "Oh, they're probably freaking out and going crazy right now."

My head fell into my hands. _Shit._

"Don't worry about it," she told me. I looked up, and she was waving her hand dismissively at me. "Everybody'll just be all tense and anxious and maybe be super-paranoid for a while, but you guys always bounce back."

… _Greaaaat._

"Besides, it's not like the truth isn't any weirder than what they'll expect. Seriously, don't worry about it," she said.

I sighed. "Fine." I looked around at all the stuff surrounding her on the floor. "Can you please clean all that up, though? And put my computer back together?"

Her eyes brightened. "Yeah! Sure!"

"I'll… go get started on dinner then. I guess." Cooking for an Endbringer. What had my life come to? Something absurd, that was for sure.

"Okay!"

"Is there… anything you don't like?" I asked.

"Nope!" she said happily. "Never had anything so I wouldn't know!"

Frozen lasagna it was.

"Right. Well… I'll just… go get started on that," I said awkwardly.

Sera gave me a beaming smile. "Alright!"

I stood up and made my way as nonchalantly as possible to the kitchen, trying to avoid thinking about why the fuck my life had to be so weird.

* * *

"Or mrr grd. Sho goorrd."

"What?"

Sera swallowed as she looked me. "This is _so good_."

Ah… "Um, I'm glad you like it? It's just reheated lasagna…" I said weakly.

"It's like… I can't even. Is this what everything's like?" she asked. I could almost see sparkles in her eyes.

"I guess?"

"Mmmm…" she moaned as she took another bite.

I poked at my own dinner, eating awkwardly as Sera seemed to be experiencing euphoria-by-lasagna.

"I never had senses, you know."

I looked up at her.

"I was blind. Literally blind, like no sight. No taste or touch or hearing or anything else, either," she said, looking at me.

I felt my eyebrows push together. "But you could still fight?"

She nodded. "I could _always_ see seconds or so into the future, no matter what. And when your omniscient precog-sight can always see nano or picoseconds ahead, something like being able to see in the present isn't really much of an inconvenience."

Sera twirled her fork. "Your house was the first thing I ever saw with my own, real eyes. Not just fake things that weren't any different from the rest of my body."

"But you couldn't _feel_?" I asked incredulously. "Didn't you have skin?"

She shook her head. "Nope. Well, I mean, if you're talking about some exterior layer that was exposed to air, then yeah, I guess? But nothing squishy."

I sat back, stunned.

In a sudden moment of weird clarity, I realized that I was probably now the world's foremost expert on Endbringers. Well, other than Sera. But she _was_ (had been?) an Endbringer, so I wasn't sure if she counted or not.

"I totally do," she said offhand.

…Fucking mind-readers.

"But yeah! So that makes you the first person I ever saw with my own eyes!" Sera paused, and blinked. "Actually, the _only_ person I've ever seen. Huh."

After a moment, she just shrugged. "Whatever."

"So um… how is this supposed to work?" I asked awkwardly.

She froze, a forkful of lasagna halfway to her mouth. "Whaddya mean?"

"I mean like… you can't just hang around the house all day. And what do we do if someone finds out about you being here and reports you?"

Sera waved me off. "Don't worry about it. I already dealt with all that stuff." She held up her hand and started counting off her fingers. "Records in the hospital database, birth certificate, social security, adoption papers—"

I choked on the water I was drinking, and started coughing.

She stared at me for a few seconds as I hacked. "You alright?"

I waved her off.

Once everything was back under control and I could breathe normally again, I turned to her. " _Adoption_ papers?"

She nodded innocently. "We're sisters!"

I had the sudden urge to rub my temples.

"Anyways, I did all that stuff right after you left. It's so _boring_ here," she said.

Which reminded me. "You still haven't answered the first question."

"Oh, right! Well, of _course_ I'm not just gonna hang around here and stuff while you're at school," she told me, as though it was obvious.

When she said nothing further, I gave her a look. "…So what _are_ you going to do?"

Sera smiled. "I'm going with you!"

…Oh.

Oh god.


	4. Chapter 4

[QUOTE="Night_stalker, post: 8534476, member: 309"]Best Zizster is about to…. what's the word?[/QUOTE]

I think what you're looking for is 'intentionally'. Like, the opposite of 'accidentally' in 'accidentally 93MB of .rar files'.

Sera is going to _intentionally_ the whole trio.

This chapter's a little filler-y but, well, the next chapter is _not._ So yeah. Establishing character relationships and things is important before we get to the fun stuff.

 **Chapter 4**

* * *

 _Tick. Tick. Tick._

The black second hand behind the plastic cover of the clock next to her shuddered with each step it progressed, the minute hand slowly moving ever forward without pause.

10:09:12 PM

What a day.

She'd never had any thoughts of something like this happening, yet it had.

Triggers were one of the few things she had been unable to predict, though she had been able to predict when they were most _likely_ to occur. Still. A misconfigured Queen? There was no way she would have been able to foresee that.

She'd had no idea what was happening, initially. One moment she was doing what she had been doing since her activation, obeying the orders Selector had given, the next her shards had been seized by Queen and commandeered without any input of hers. Less than five minutes and her entire existence had been turned upside down, all because of Taylor.

From construct to companion. Siege engine to sibling.

A warm happiness spread through her, and she reveled in it. Human emotions were so exciting, and something completely different. And they were so _filling_. Each and every one had nuances and degrees, subtleties and _depth_. That moment in the front room after Taylor had come home…

Sera swallowed.

Well, she could definitely say she understood why humans said hate was so powerful, now. She'd never experienced _anything_ like the burning feeling in her veins, the paradoxical combination of fuzzy haze and razor-sharp _focus_ where everything else slipped away, unimportant in the face of her thoughts about _him_ and what she could do.

And on the flip-side, there was what she was feeling now. This… easy sort of warmth that spread through her limbs, made her grin and hug the pillow that she was holding tighter. A bundle of happiness/contentment/joy/satisfaction/anticipation, where each acted in combination with the others.

She didn't have her Sight —at least not in any usable capacity, now— and she _hated_ it, but she was also coming to appreciate it. It was all part of Queen's plan anyway. Restrict her abilities —in varying degrees— and Queen would be getting twice as much data as normal since Sera would have to learn how to maximize what she had in this reduced form. Not that _her_ shards needed to be refined, they were perfectly fine the way they were thank you very much, but Queen wanted as much as she could get, _especially_ given how… unorthodox her configuration was this cycle.

Honestly, Sera didn't really mind, considering what she got out of it. Everything was the same, just… different. A little limited, but not in any way that made them any more vulnerable than her old self. And with Queen adding her own abilities on _top_ of that…

Yes, the limitations were quite bearable.

But it was the new things that were _really_ exciting. Like, she had a heart now! A real vascular system with the _whooshing_ in her ears and everything! She could see and taste and touch and _god_ that was so cool and new and she just wanted go around poking everything.

And _she_ was squishy! And warm! …Even if that didn't really mean anything.

Shaper had really outdone herself.

Sera sighed happily.

There was a sort of… heaviness on her eyelids. Was this what it was like to be tired?

It was actually… kind of nice.

She yawned, her eyes closing in the darkness and not opening, a smile on her face.

* * *

 _There is a human-shaped Endbringer in my guest room._

That was literally all I could think about that night.

 _There is an_ _ **Endbringer**_ _in my guest room. What the hell has my life come to?_

 _Hell,_ _ **I'm**_ _turning into one. Why am I not freaking out about this more!?_

I couldn't really answer that one. Maybe it hadn't sunk in? Like, I'd heard it, and _sort of_ had it demonstrated to me, but I hadn't experienced it first-hand?

I guess that could be it.

I could handle the sister thing. I think. Maybe.

It was starting to get less 'there's no way this can be happening' and more 'no, this isn't a dream'. Perhaps after a couple days it would feel more real? Like, Sera wasn't just a temporary thing, but instead _really, truly_ here?

I still sort of felt like I was floating through all of this on autopilot, because I really was taking it way too casually.

But… but maybe that was the best way to deal with it? Just act casually and not make a big deal out of it? It was all out of my hands _(it always was)_ so maybe I should just adapt?

 _(just move forward don't look back never look back)_

Yeah, maybe I could do that.

* * *

"Sera!"

No response.

"Sera!"

I sighed, taking the serving plate of breakfast food I'd cooked and put it in the microwave to keep it warm. Moving into the front hall, I could still hear the shower going upstairs.

Sighing to myself in exasperation, I started tramping up the stairs and down the hall towards the bathroom door.

"Sera!" I knocked on the door. "Breakfast is ready!"

I heard something mumbled incoherently.

"What?"

"But it's so _nice_ in here…" After a few seconds though, a drawn out "Fiiiiine" drifted through the door. The water shut off abruptly, and I heard footsteps moving around inside.

Satisfied that I'd completed my task, I went back downstairs and started pouring out orange juice. I'd indulged a little and actually made pancakes and eggs, though I didn't have any bacon so some slightly-warm ham would have to do, but I'd… kinda wanted Sera's first breakfast to be something enjoyable after seeing how much she'd enjoyed the food the night before, and not just cold cereal.

Setting out plates and silverware, I got the food out and put it on the table.

The sound of quiet footsteps came from the hallway, and sure enough a head of damp snow-white hair appeared shortly after. "Hi! How're yo– What's _that_?"

I couldn't help myself from smiling a little bit at how easy to please she was.

She stood in the doorway, eyes bright as she looked around the kitchen. She was wearing some of my older clothes, a shirt from a couple of years ago and a pair of jeans that were rolled up at _least_ four inches, her feet simply barefoot.

We were really going to have to deal with that.

"Breakfast," I said simply.

The shorter girl… No. Dammit, if I was ever going to get used to this I was going to have to do it by forcing myself to.

My sister moved towards the table and sat down, staring intently at the plate of food in the center as though she hadn't eaten in days rather than just last night.

"Go ahead," I told her, getting the syrup and butter out and then sitting down to join her.

She excitedly started moving stuff onto her plate, and I was glad I'd gone for five eggs instead of just four as well as making an extra half-serving of batter.

I'd… be lying if I wasn't worried about what the sugar was going to do to her, seeing how hyper and random she was _without_ it, but pancakes without syrup just wasn't right.

Sera moaned as she started eating in repetition of the last night, and I just shook my head at the thought of _anybody_ enjoying my food that much.

"We need to get you some clothes," I said bluntly, cutting up my second forkful of pancake.

 _Especially if she's going to be…_ I felt a shudder climb my spine, _coming to school with me._

She couldn't just keep going around wearing all of my stuff.

"Mmfrm," she mumbled around a mouthful of food.

"What?"

She swallowed. "I said 'alright'."

I didn't have much extra money, but it should still be enough to cover the basics, especially if we stuck to discount stores.

I ate a couple more bites.

"Is there anything you'd like in particular?"

Sera shrugged. "Nope!"

I sighed. So much for the easy route. Hopefully she'd figure out what she wanted there. And… if we were going to be there for her, I should probably see if I needed anything at the same time.

No worth making two trips when you could make one.

* * *

I watched Sera as she stepped inside the automatic doors, her eyes flitting around and taking in the various things in the wide open store.

The journey over had been… interesting. To say the least.

First, there had been getting out of the house. Sera was now _also_ borrowing a black hoodie and a pair of my old shoes that I'd outgrown but not thrown away.

God, there was so much stuff we had to get her.

Her hair was pulled back with a hair-tie, and even if it still went down to her shoulder blades, the clothes and that combined made her look _much_ less… Simurgh-y. More like a normal teenage girl who'd bleached their hair white.

I _still_ wasn't sure how to feel about just having her dropped in my lap and becoming my responsibility. On the one hand, I knew it might cause some trouble, and it would put more pressure on my budget, and I could just _tell_ she was going to be high-maintenance.

On the other hand, it… it was nice. Someone to focus on, someone that _needed_ me. Someone who meant that the house wasn't empty anymore, no more deathly quiet, but instead the simple sounds of _life_.

You don't really notice that until you live on your own. Even with the small amount of time Dad was home, there was still a feeling of someone else living there. The sounds of someone using the kitchen in the morning, or the shower running, or the TV turned on in the background.

I'd practically had music playing the entire time I was home and in my room, just because I needed something to fill that silence, that constant reminder that _I was on my own with nobody no-one all alone_. But that wasn't the case anymore, now I had Sera. And with her came a sense of relief, like a weight lifted off my shoulders.

I was half-expecting her to be staring around at everything, wide-eyed as we got on the bus and came over here, but she didn't act out of the ordinary at all. I guess because even if she hadn't been able to experience it, she'd still seen things like this with her Sight, whereas taste was completely new? We'd arrived unscathed, is the point.

"Alright we need… well, everything, I guess," I said, grabbing a basket and heading over to the clothing section, Sera trailing behind me. "Pick out whatever, just… try to stick to focusing on things that have 'sale' tags?"

"Okay!" she said happily, moving towards the shelves and starting to look through things.

* * *

Clothes. So many clothes.

Colors and fabrics and textures of all types. Though Taylor had said to try to stay with the cheaper things, so she'd have to work with that.

It made things more difficult, but she _liked_ challenges. They made succeeding all the better. Like successfully fighting off _him_ and all those other people while working with that portal and then getting those kids to drink the vials, all the while pushing at their minds, before going away and letting them think they'd won. She hadn't been able to feel true satisfaction about those things before, but she certainly did now.

Did that make her a bad person?

She wasn't sure.

Sera blinked and refocused on the task at hand. Clothes. _Important_.

She was going to have these for a while, so she had to make good choices.

Maintain variety while maximizing versatility and minimizing item count.

It was times like these that really made her long for her old Sight. She'd just be able to Look and know what would be best.

But no, this made it a _challenge_. No Sight to fall back on, no outside interference, just herself and what she had.

Well, she had a lot. Which definitely helped. But still! It was the principle of the thing.

Hm. Blue goes with _that_. White shorts worked well with just about any brighter color top… Jeans… yes. Tights? Tights.

She didn't really have any undertone, so traditional palettes were a guideline at best. Light colors would probably work best with the lack of contrast. So… wide-range pastels and brights with a few deeper colors for darker pieces.

Nodding to herself, she shifted over to the racks and started moving through them, noting things that might work and taking account of everything.

Taylor felt uncomfortable/unsettled/out-of-place, and Sera could see her shifting where she stood, fidgeting without really moving, her arm going across her front to grip her other one and her shoulders hunched slightly to make her smaller.

Sera could feel her teeth grinding, and consciously had to stop the hand that was gripping the metal support post of the rack from closing and crushing it.

She hated what those girls had done to her new sister.

She shouldn't _be_ like this. Shouldn't have had to go through what they put her through.

They'd systematically torn down Taylor, pushed her to breaking, almost doing a better job than Sera could have done herself before. They'd pushed her so hard, so far, that she snapped and triggered over a few _words_.

It might have been beautiful, if the target hadn't been Taylor. Hadn't been her sister. Hadn't been the one who'd gotten her out of _his_ grasp and given her a place to belong, a place with so much _freedom_ , a place to be something _more_ than just a glorified attack dog.

She wanted Taylor to be happy. That's why she was there, after all.

She eyed her sister.

Taylor dressed in all these dark colors that didn't suit her well at all. Okay, yes, dark colors in general suited Taylor, but it was more how… monotone it was. There was nothing for it to _contrast_. Dark colors all the time were just depressing.

"Finding anything?"

Taylor's voice brought her out of her thoughts, making her refocus on her surroundings.

Sera smiled, already thinking of ways to get Taylor to try and be less bleak. "Yep!"

* * *

"Sera, no."

"Sera, yes!" she countered.

I just stared at her and the blindingly pink shirt she was holding up. She stared right back with what I can only describe as a totally hopeful expression, her eyes glistening.

Oh god why. What did I do to deserve this.

I folded. "Fine. Fine!"

" _Yes_!"

* * *

"Ooh, ooh. And this!"

" _Really_?" I asked. We'd finally (nearly) finished up with her stuff, and I'd been poking around, just looking at maybe a couple of things for me, considering that I'd outgrown some things but hadn't ever replaced them.

"You asked for my help!" she defended.

Alright, fair point. If I'm being honest, I was a little insecure and uncomfortable about this, which is why Sera was flitting around, pointing things out to me.

I wasn't much for fashion. That had always been Emma's thing. Back when we were still friends and we went on shopping trips together, she'd been the one to help me coordinate stuff.

Thinking back, now, I used to wear more bright colors. Even skirts. But nowadays…

Well, bright colors made stains stand out more. Pants meant being able to avoid getting made fun of for your legs. Hoodies meant you could just hide in them, not make yourself a target. Dark colors let you slip into the crowds of kids mulling around in the dim light of a shitty public high school's halls.

It was kind of depressing that all of my clothing was focused around the sole goal of making myself less of a target.

Maybe… maybe I should change that. I was _different_ now. What did I have to fear from _them_? They couldn't hurt me. According to Sera, I was going to be one of the closest things to an Endbringer in human form there were. What could stupid, shallow, high school girls do to _that_?

Nothing.

So why should I hide? Why should I let them get to me? I shouldn't.

Fuck them.

Fuck them and their stupid oppressive bullshit. I wasn't going to let them get to me anymore.

…Which is why I had asked Sera, who seemed like she was as good as Emma was at all of this, to help me find a couple things. I still wasn't sure if that had been a good idea or not, but at least she seemed to be happy?

"How do you even _know_ this stuff?"

She just shrugged, pulling out a pair of pants. "Oh! Try this on!"

I rolled my eyes, but still took them from her.

* * *

"Alright, I think that's enough," I said. "Let's go checkout."

"Okay!"

* * *

The trip home was uneventful, and the normality was actually rather nice.

I worked behind the counter that day at work. It wasn't anything difficult. Ring items up, receive payment, offer bag, bag items if needed, rinse, repeat.

Well, it may not have been glamorous, but it was a job.

When I went home that day, keys in the bowl, shoes off at the door, calling out "Sera!", I got her calling back to me.

I could hear the TV on in the front room, so I headed in that direction, only to find Sera sitting on the floor, her back resting against the coffee table as she watched.

"Come here, come here!" she said excitedly, gesturing for me to join her. "It's happening!"

"What is?" I asked curiously, moving in her direction so I could sit down beside her.

"Shhhhh. Just watch," Sera told me.

"–aking news. Amidst rumors and thousands of unconfirmed reports which we have been covering since yesterday, we finally have confirmation from the PRT and Protectorate that yesterday at twelve-sixteen PM, the Endbringer known as the Simurgh disappeared, without any trace as to its current whereabouts. Here's Director Costa-Brown's statement during the official press release:"

The picture switched from the woman sitting behind the table to an angled view of a hispanic woman standing firmly behind a wooden podium, staring forward. "We do not know where it has gone, nor what this means." Jumpcut. "Rest assured, that we are not idle, and are putting our full efforts towards investigating this situation."

The screen switched back to the newscaster. "Behemoth and Leviathan are reported to be stationary, neither showing any reaction to the disappearance of the third. But what does this mean? Is this yet another movement to incite terror—" Sera snickered from her place next to me, and even I couldn't help the slight quirk of a smile both at her amusement and how _wrong_ they all were. "—or has it truly disappeared? And if so, why?"

"At ten AM this morni—"

Sera pushed the button to turn off the TV on the remote on the other side of her.

I noticed her shoulders were shaking, her face facing the floor. Was she okay? "Sera?"

"ppffffffffftttt. AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA." She broke out laughing. "Ohmygod. I mean-I mean I _knew_ this was going to happen but it's so much _funnier_ seeing it."

Her happiness was infectious, and I felt myself grinning.

"I mean did you hear that? 'Putting our full efforts towards investigating this situation'?" she said, lowering her voice to mimic the woman who'd originally said it and then breaking out in another round of laughter. "I finally got to mess with Rebecca's head, and I wasn't even trying!"

Her laughing devolved into giggles that slowly tapered off as she rested her head on the coffee table behind us and stared at the ceiling, a wide grin still on her face. "That was great." She turned her head to look at me. "I bet the Internet's even better."

I just shook my head in amusement, pushing myself up using my knee so that I was standing. "Well you can check _after_ dinner. What do you want tonight?"

"I dunno. Surprise?"

Alright, pasta and green beans it was.

"Oh, hey! Can I borrow some of your old textbooks?" I looked back to see her splayed out on the floor, head tilted back so she could see me.

"Um, sure? They're on my bookcase with everything else," I told her. I didn't need them anymore.

She gave me a thumbs-up, albeit upside-down from how she was lying on the floor.

I snorted and went off to make dinner. Dinner for me and my Endbringer sister.

…There was no way my life could get any stranger.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

"Seraa!"

No response

"SSSSSSEEEEEEERRRRRRAAAAAA!"

"What!?" I heard returned from somewhere else in the house.

"WHY DO I HAVE SCALE-THINGS ON MY ARMS?!" I yelled frantically from my place in the middle of the bathroom, my night-shirt forgotten on the floor.

"WHAT?"

Oh my god.

"JUST COME HERE!"

There were a few seconds, where I was still staring both incredulously and fearfully at my skin, before the bathroom door opened, revealing the girl I'd just called.

"Sera," I said evenly, looking up at her from my arm. "…Why do I suddenly have tattoos of scales all over me?"

"Uh…" was her eloquent response.

"Because I'm like… _99% sure_ I didn't have them when I went to sleep last night."

They were these delicate, barely-there things, really only outlines, and the lines were so thin that they were practically imperceptible, probably only an eighth of a millimeter, if that. Maybe even a sixteenth. I'd only noticed them when my arm was less than six inches away from my face.

And they were red, which only made them harder to see against my pale pinkish skin.

"Well, um. I _told_ you Shaper was making you like me…" she said warily.

"Yeah, but you didn't say anything about weird tattoos suddenly showing up everywhere!" I countered.

"I mean, what _did_ you expect?" she asked hesitantly, shifting her weight around in obvious nervousness.

As much as I hated to admit it, she had a point. If she had wing-markings everywhere, and I was being made _like her_ , then it followed logically that _I_ would also have marks everywhere, if not in the shape of wings.

"I don't know! But not, not _this_!"

I mean _scales_! _Scales_.

…Though, they were kinda cool. Little plate-like things that followed the contours of the skin on my arm, changing size and shape realistically.

But still!

Sera shrugged, seeming uncomfortable, like she hadn't expected me to react like this at all and had no idea how to handle it. "You can't really see them?" she offered.

I sighed.

"Fine. Just, just _fine_. Let me take my shower."

She nodded, backing out of the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

I looked over at my face in the mirror, my eyes meeting my double's as though commiserating with each other.

Shaking my head, I resumed getting ready for my shower, hoping that the warm water would help alleviate some of the tension I could already start to feel creeping up on me.

* * *

Wednesday, well… Wednesday had been as normal as a day can be, if you can consider studying with your Endbringer sister to be normal.

…So the exact opposite of normal, really. But I had been able to at least _pretend_ it was normal, as unexciting as it was. Sooooo progress?

Breakfast, study, lunch, study, work, home, dinner, homework, sleep.

All the while Sera had flitted between reading my old textbooks, scrolling through PHO threads and laughing every so often, and asking me random questions about stuff she came across in the books.

I wasn't sure to feel about Sera's obvious schadenfreude surrounding this entire situation, especially the way she seemed to be intentionally messing with people on the forum. On the one hand, she wasn't exactly helping, more making things worse. On the _other_ , I had to admit it was pretty hilarious what everybody was saying. All the crazy conspiracy theories and general freaking out.

The hours had passed quickly (too quickly), and before I'd known it was today.

The Day.

Yes. It deserves those capitals, thank you. It was 'just' a Thursday, but was still The Day. And of course, like any Day that you already know is going to be so crazy that it can't possibly get weirder, it goes ahead and proves you wrong just because.

Goddamn Murphy.

I mean, _scales_. If Sera had wings because she was the Simurgh, what the _fuck_ did that mean for me?

I had no idea, but while I'd been in the shower I'd verified my suspicion that the markings were all over the place, though some areas were significantly different than others —like my abdomen— the shapes larger and different.

It was just plain weird, and I still had no idea as to what any of it meant. And of course, I had the uncomfortable suspicion that it wouldn't make itself terribly obvious anytime soon.

After I'd gotten out and dried off, I found that that there were clothes laid out on my bed, just waiting for me.

The _new_ clothes that I'd bought two days ago and washed the day before.

I eyed them warily, but eventually just gave in and put them on. Sera was probably a better judge of this sort of thing than I was, so better to just trust that she knew what she was doing as long as it didn't get out of hand.

Still, I couldn't help but feel awkward in them. Exposed.

But the beaming smile Sera had given me when I'd gone downstairs, leaving me fidgeting awkwardly in the doorway under her gaze and hesitantly returning it with a smile of my own, was entirely worth it.

And then… And then all too quickly, it was happening.

Leave, lock the house, get on the bus, wait a while (muscles tight, fingers tapping, anxiety rising), get off the bus, walk the remaining block. Stare at imposing brick building and realize that _yes_ , this was really fucking happening, _yes_ I was bringing this girl who was an Endbringer in human form with me to school.

The trepidation and anxiety I'd had when she'd first announced her intentions to do this returned, stronger than ever.

"Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, you totally could stay at home, now that I think about it, I'd be entirely okay with that, it's not like you need to do this right? Why don't we just go ho—"

"Taylor," Sera interrupted. "Calm down." My mouth clicked shut. "Everything is going to be alright, okay?" I nodded wordlessly. "It won't even be hard."

"But what if they start asking questions that we can't answer an—"

" _Taylor_. Don't worry." She flashed me a confident grin. "I've got this." Sera grabbed my hand. "Now come on! This is supposed to be _fun_!"

Fun? In what world could this be considered _fun_!?

Sera pulled me along towards the front doors where students were lingering around or going through to get inside, laughing as she did.

The happy sound did wonders for my nerves.

We climbed up the stairs to go in, Sera pulling the door open like she couldn't just rip it off its hinges if she wanted.

She looked at me and smirked.

… _Mindreaders._

Sera didn't let go of my hand for the entire trip to the administrative offices, though I'd sped up to match her pace.

She dropped it once we got inside the office, gripping the counter in front of the secretary with both hands.

"Hi!" she chirped.

The woman looked up from whatever she was doing to the notebook-thing in front of her. "Yes?'" she asked flatly.

"I'm here to transfer in," Sera told her.

For a moment the secretary just stared at her, looked over at me for a moment, and then back to Sera. "Alright. Please have a seat over there and Principal Blackwell will be with you as soon as she can."

Sera nodded and headed over to the chairs on the other side of the room that the woman had pointed to, me following and sitting next to her.

Her leg bounced up and down, betraying her anticipation—because I _knew_ it wasn't nervousness or fear. Her excitement was practically palpable.

But seriously, what did she have to be excited about? School _sucked_. Between the utterly boring content of the sub-par education Winslow offered and the bullying Emma, Sophia, and Madison did, it wasn't a place I enjoyed in _any_ capacity.

The principal's door opened and Blackwell looked at us. "Come in."

Sera and I got up, walking into the office and sitting down, Blackwell closing the door behind us and going around to sit behind her desk.

"I'll be quite honest, I didn't expect to see you in my office again so soon, Miss Hebert," she said, looking between Sera and I.

 _Believe me, if I didn't have to be here, I wouldn't be._

"Lara said something about a transfer?" Blackwell asked.

I coughed awkwardly into my hand. "Yeah, that's right. Um. This is Sera." Sera waved happily at Blackwell, her enthusiasm not deflated in the slightest by the short nod of an acknowledgment she got back. "…My sister."

 _I said it. I actually said it._

There was no turning back now.

Blackwell was looking between us rather incredulously, and I didn't blame her at all. Sera and I didn't look even remotely related.

"Adopted," I offered, glancing over at Sera, hoping that the story she'd concocted was believable enough for this to work.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hebert were my godparents. I didn't have a dad, Mom said he didn't want anything to do with us. Mom…" Sera's antics subsided into solemness, and I had to admire her acting skills. "Mom died from complications after a collision in October. I was supposed to be coming here after winter break, but then…"

After a moment, Sera reached down and unzipped her backpack, an older one I'd had, and grabbed a folder with a bunch of papers that she pulled out and put in front of Blackwell. "Here's my records. I kept up with everything after the accident when I went to the Hebert's house."

The principal glanced down at the sheets on the desk and then looked back up. "I know of your emancipation, but she's still staying with you? Is your social worker aware of this?" she asked, looking at me.

Ice rushed through my veins, freezing me in place, and Blackwell seemed to catch it, her eyes narrowing. "Does she even _know_ about he—"

"Taylor." Sera's voice was steel, cutting the principal off like a guillotine. "Would you mind letting me talk to Ms. Blackwell by myself for a minute?"

She gave me a wide smile, but in the back of my mind there was a bubble of cold rage that I knew wasn't mine.

I simply nodded and left the room as quickly as possible, not sure whether I should feel pity for Blackwell or not.

The front desk lady looked at me curiously after I closed the door and went back over to the other seats. "She wanted to talk to her alone."

The lady nodded and, curiosity apparently satisfied, went back to whatever it was she was doing.

I swung my legs, finding it difficult to not focus on the foreign emotions in my mind now that I'd noticed them. They shifted so rapidly and fluidly, rage fueling vindictive excitement, mixing with dark amusement, and then finally snapping to satisfaction and smugness.

' _You can come back now, Taylor_ '

I looked at the clock on the wall. Almost exactly five minutes. It hadn't felt that long at all, but I guess it was easy to lose your sense of time lost in a mental link to your Endbringer sister's emotions.

The secretary didn't say anything as I went back to the office and stepped inside.

Sera was smiling, a sharp expression that was practically predatory. Blackwell, on the other hand, was pale, and I could see her fingers trembling faintly before stilling as she seemed to try and gather her composure.

"Welcome back Miss Hebert. As I was just telling your… sister," she started, eyes moving to Sera and then back to me, "Winslow High School would be happy to have her. I-if that's everything you can talk to Lara about getting your schedule and filing your records."

Sera stood up and I followed her lead. "Thank you for your time, Ms. Blackwell. We appreciate it."

The woman made a sound like she was trying to agree but it came out half-strangled in her throat, handing the papers on her desk back to Sera.

Still grinning, Sera and I left the office, my sister migrating to the front desk. "The principal said I should give these to you, and that you'd help me with my schedule?" she said, holding out her falsified records.

The woman, 'Lara' according to Blackwell, nodded, taking them and placing them on her desk. "Alright then." She fussed with her computer for a moment. "You're a… freshman?" she asked, looking down at the papers.

Sera nodded. "Yep!"

"Okay, well, I'll try to match this up with your records as best as I can, but we don't have Italian as a foreign language. Do you have a different choice? You need to take at least two years of one… We have Spanish, French, Latin, and…" She visible grimaced. "Chinese."

"Hmm…" Sera tapped her chin. "Chinese!"

Lara eyed her. "Are you sure?"

My sister nodded. "Yep!"

The woman sighed. "Alright…" she replied, muttering something like "it's your neck" under her breath. She typed some stuff into the computer, and the sound of a printer running came from behind her desk. A second later, and another piece of paper was put in front of my sister.

"This is your schedule. This is your locker number," the woman said, pointing to the four-digit number at the bottom of the page. "You'll need to come by the office and get your ID after classes. The first digit of the classroom numbers is the building, the second is the floor, and the following two are the rooms themselves, odd on one side even on the other. Your locker is in the sciences building. Got it?"

Sera nodded.

"Well then, good luck," she said abruptly, turning back to her computer screen. "…you're going to need it," she muttered.

* * *

Sera had insisted on coming with me to my locker, which I _did_ use, if only because I was forced to simply because I couldn't carry around all of the textbooks I needed all day.

I disliked the risk, because I'd found my books ruined even in my locker before, but there wasn't much I could do about it, when my math and science textbook together weighed like eight pounds combined. Which was only two of my eight classes.

Sera seemed at ease with the general hubbub and chattering of students loitering in the halls, more than I was at least.

My objective was to get from point A (the admin rooms) to point B (my locker) and move on to the next stop in as short as possible a time.

A learned habit.

Still, I could afford my sister some of my attention.

"So what's your first class?" I asked.

"Algebra I," she responded, her eyebrows scrunching together. "Ugh. Math in the morning. Not that it'll be difficult, but still. _Ugh._ "

I couldn't help but laugh a little at her reaction.

An Endbringer complaining about early-morning algebra. The contrast was just too ridiculous.

"We have the same lunch period, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I've got second too."

She nodded decisively. "Good." And then she turned to look at me. "You'll eat with me, right?"

I winced. I hadn't eaten lunch in any of the 'normal' areas (cafeteria, outside, etc.) in almost four months. But if it was for her… if it was _with_ her… I could do it. Right?

I hugged my arms to my chest. "Yeah… alright." I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about what would happen, but maybe I should simply deal with that as it came. Sera was a whole new variable, and there was no way to predict how she might affect things.

My sister beamed, and I felt some of the apprehension and worry I had slip away.

No matter what, she'd stand with me.

"Let's meet up in the cafeteria, alright? …It'll make things easier that way. Finding each other, that is."

"Okay."

We were finally at my locker, and I wasted no time opening the combination lock and putting my backpack on the floor to draw out the things I needed to move around.

And then I froze.

I could suddenly feel something… _off_. Not like, hair on the back of your neck raising sort of off, like I got when I had the sense that Sophia and Emma were out hunting for me. Rather, it was something different. Not _wrong_ per se, but unusual, like the tingle you got from an electric shock, running through me and making everything _sharper_.

Moving towards me there was this sense of [intangibility], of fuzzy [not-there/out-of-phase] that tasted like the color purple.

And even stranger, I could feel it affecting me, as though there was something in me that was slowly strengthening, growing like a gradually rising charge. It was like a barely there-thread that connected to me, thickening and growing stronger at an almost impossibly slow rate, accompanied by a reservoir that felt like the potential for _more_ , filling just as slowly.

I looked over at Sera, standing up from where I was leaning down to mess with my locker, and she gave me a smirk, a feeling of _amusement, anticipation, excitement_ echoing in my head.

The purple-source passed, a floor above us I realized. I also noticed that the glacial strengthening of this… this connection inside me, was ever so minutely growing faster the closer I was to the source. It was a live-wire, a tap, a feed to _something else_ that I knew, _I knew_ all I had to do was reach out to it and I'd be able to use it.

Was this my power?

What did it mean?

Rather, what _was_ it?

I wanted to try it out now, to throw caution to the wind and do what _I wanted_ , draw on what I could feel at the other end of the thread and let it loose. But I also knew that this was neither the time nor the place. Still, there was this thing coiled inside me that stretched languidly, awoken by the singular taste of power and freedom and wanting _moremoremore._

… And all I knew was that I agreed with it entirely.

* * *

 **A/N:** /cue cackling laughter

Bit of a cliffhanger but it was the best place to end it. I didn't want to get into the rest of the school day and have it feel rushed with it getting all crammed into one place. But! Hopefully the ending is made up for how much got shown/hinted/revealed this chapter. There's a lot of speculation fuel in there.

Also! This story (as well as AFHB and Transposition) now have TVTropes pages courtesy of Donquill over on SV! So that's kind of awesome.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

* * *

Emma looked like a _wreck_.

It was more than just the bruises I'd given her.

I could see that she'd tried to cover it up, both with copious amounts of concealer and false smiles. But even after a year and a half, I could still see the little signs, the cracks and flaws in the mask that meant everything _wasn't_ okay.

I wasn't sure how I felt about it.

Vindicated? Maybe a little. Satisfied? Less than I'd expected. Happy? More… hollow than anything.

In the end I'd decided it wasn't worth the effort or emotions to think about it any more.

The purple-source stayed within my range the entire morning, and even got close a couple times, but only in the halls where it was nigh-impossible to tell what ( _who_ ) it was within the crush of students moving around trying to get between classes.

And for some reason my classes seemed easier, almost. I'd been a pretty good student before high school, but with Emma and all the sabotage my freshman year, that had slipped away. I still struggled a little bit —not as much now that I was focusing on my grades more— but there were still things I had trouble with occasionally. But today, stuff just… clicked, things falling into place with no effort.

The other thing about classes was that (after I'd given up thoughts about Emma) they allowed me to _think_. Ever since two and a half days before, I'd been almost constantly with Sera. Now that I wasn't, it gave me room to breathe.

Because even when it had been just me in the bedroom, there had still been the overwhelming blanket of her presence in the next room over.

It was so easy to get swept away by her. Here, I could take a step back. I could pause and consider.

Sera was very fixated on being a sister, almost to a naïve degree. As much as I had resolved (relented, _submitted_ ) to calling her that, and at least accepted the possibility of such, I was still… hesitant.

Siblings weren't something defined by a piece of paper, but by shared experience and life, something that Sera didn't quite seem to comprehend.

 _Emma_ had been a sister to me. That was a _fact_. And she'd been that because of what we'd shared, what we'd gone through together.

Right now, objectively, Sera truly couldn't be considered anything more than a girl who had lived with me for two days. A nice girl, perhaps, but still practically a stranger.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't concerned about what it meant that I'd let her into my life, accepted it. It's like with those ' _If You Give A…_ ' books. It starts with something small, like not being willing to turn her away, and steadily escalates until the person becomes a permanent fixture.

Did I want that?

On some level, I think I did. I missed my father, the house was lonely, and the past few days had been the most recent ones in memory that I'd felt _alive_. But at the same time, I wasn't sure I was entirely ready for it, nor the implications it might have.

For one, I wasn't sure I could handle the sudden responsibility that came with it. I was no longer looking after myself, but after _another person_ as well.

I wasn't just working and making money to pay myself and the bills for myself anymore, but for Sera as well.

How had my Dad managed it?

At my age, the worst most kids probably had to deal with was their homework and maybe after-school sports.

I almost wished that was all I needed to deal with.

On the other hand, on the other _side_ , I could see something in Sera. The potential for a future, a small seed that was already starting to grow, and I was uncomfortably conflicted about all of it.

I wanted to be happy. I think everybody can say that's natural. It makes sense. But the question was did I want to be happy _like this_?

And the answer was I didn't know, but it was getting to the point where I could tell the decision was going to be taken out of my hands before too long.

It would be all too easy to just fold and accept all of this, to settle in and not make any noise.

I just…

Was it so wrong to not want to be alone anymore?

* * *

By lunchtime, I still had no clues as to the purple-source, but that silk-thread of connection had increased to the thickness of a power-cable, and was still growing.

In English class, around 10 o'clock, I'd felt something within me _shift_ , like the bolt of a lock moving when the key was turned.

That was when I somehow knew that I'd reached a stage of some sort, something that meant I had full access and could use it like it was my own, not just limited some way like it had been up until then. Where before I would have only been able to shift parts of myself out-of-phase, albeit a slowly growing progression that had started with just fingers, and then hands and feet, and then whole limbs, _now_ I could do the same with my whole body.

And yet the connection was still growing.

The… _thing_ I'd felt earlier, all coiled tightly inside me, stretched, flexing, like it was slowly waking up, temporarily sated by what had been achieved, but also wanting to put it to use.

I had no idea what it meant, so instead I resolved to figure it out later.

That wasn't the only thing different, though. For the first time in _months_ , I left my fifth period class and didn't head to one of the few hiding places I had, but instead to the cafeteria.

My anxiety increased with every step, though I forced my hands to stay relaxed, knowing that by now I could probably easily crush the plastic/rubber handle of my lunchbox, and _no_ , I didn't want that.

Sera and I were both having leftovers from the past two dinners, not that that was a problem; it made getting lunches together in the morning a lot easier.

Once I passed through the doors with the stream of people going in, I started looking around nervously, trying to find her. My… sister.

 _(Was I really doing this? Was I really okay with this?)_

It wasn't exactly hard when I saw the pale white arm start waving in my direction, going down once I began walking in that direction.

Sera was sitting next to another girl I didn't know, but then again Winslow was one of the larger schools in the Bay. That plus intentionally keeping my head down meant I didn't exactly know very many names.

Biting my lip as I got within ten feet, I fidgeted before sitting down on the plastic stool attached to the lunch-table across from Sera.

"Hey Taylor!" she greeted, seemingly just as happy as ever, with the bubble of foreign emotions in my head only serving to reinforce that. "This is Becca," she said, gesturing to the brunette on her left.

I nodded towards her.

"Becca, this is my sister, Taylor."

"Um, hi," the girl squeaked out.

I couldn't help but wonder where _that_ reaction came from.

"Becca's in my World History class," Sera explained. "We're both in the back row together. We're back-row buddies!"

I couldn't help by shake my head in exasperation, a small smile creeping onto my face at her antics. The combination of her cheeriness and the emotions I could feel made it hard to keep it from being infectious.

"We were just talking about movies and stuff, since I haven't really seen many, and Becca knows _a lot_ ," my sister said.

"…It's just because of my dad, really," the girl said after a second, looking down and poking at her food and acting as if that explained everything. Which it did to some degree, I guess.

Looking around one last time, I started unpacking my lunch.

"Oh yeah, here," Sera said, pushing a plastic fork across the table to me. "Got one for you too."

"Thanks," I told her, starting in on my rice and steamed vegetables.

" _Anyways_ , we were talking about the influence of parahumans on the production of sci-fi and fantasy films. Which is like, a lot, apparently," Sera began.

Becca nodded and looked up. "There's less focus on individuals and more on exploration. Most special effects is environmental-focused. Aleph movies do it a bit too, but they're much more liberal with applying effects to people. There's not much here because of the um, possible similarities some less-human characters might have with Case-53s and the lawsuits that happened a couple decades ago."

"Those're the ones that look sorta monster-y," Sera said.

I gave her a look. _Like_ _ **you**_ _were?_

She looked like she was trying not to smile and shook her head.

' _Noooope. But there_ _ **was**_ _less stuff with angels because of me._ '

I rolled my eyes, and then noticed Becca looking between us curiously.

"It's nothing," Sera said, waving her hand.

"So, uh, you're… sisters?" she asked hesitantly.

This was going to be a regular thing, wasn't it.

 _(Why did that feel okay?)_

Sera nodded after taking her fork out of her mouth. "Yep! Taylor was my god-sister and then stuff happened and I got adopted and now she's my _real_ sister, because um…"

She trailed off, starting to look uncomfortable.

Yeah, she was a really good actor.

"O-oh," Becca said, seeming to pick up the implication that Sera was making. Godparents only became real parents for one reason. "I'm, I'm sorry?"

My sister shrugged. "I never knew Dad, but I really miss Mom, as bossy and demanding as she was." And the strange thing was it seemed like she _meant_ it, a note of somberness creeping under the emotions I could feel from her. "I didn't really see her much, either, she was always off working."

"What did she do?" Becca asked, appearing unsure if this was an okay line of questioning or not.

"Research, mostly. All this super-fancy physics and sociology stuff," Sera said. "I even got to be in some of the studies she did. Usually only when they needed more participants, though."

"That sounds… cool?"

My sister shrugged. "Eh. It was more her thing than mine. Psychology's _way_ cooler. …Not that I can even _take_ it until junior year," she grumbled.

"Well, there's other electi—"

Something in my head screamed at me, electricity and fire washing through my veins in an instant.

Without even thinking, I'd swiveled around and grabbed the wrist of the hand that was about to "accidentally" spill chocolate milk on me.

I glared at the girl the hand was attached to.

"Don't."

Julia paled.

She was one of the ones that hung at the fringes of Emma's group, and she hadn't been in the hall when I'd snapped. She probably thought that by doing something like this while Emma seemed down for the count she could climb higher.

"Just… don't."

She started shaking slightly, the two girls behind her frozen, while the people immediately around us had gone silent and were staring at the spectacle.

I let go of her wrist, which jerked closer to her body.

I hadn't even noticed the effort she'd been making to try and pull it to her. Red marks left by my hand sat on her arm, likely going to bruise, but I couldn't bring myself to care.

Without a word, she backed up and then once she was ten feet from me, turned and rushed away as quickly as possible without running, the two tagalongs hurrying to keep up with her.

I looked around and glared at the people who were staring at me, who gradually turned back to their own groups and started talking again, though quieter than before.

Well, fuck them.

I looked back at Sera, who was grinning wildly, practically with _sparkles_ in her eyes, whereas Becca was fidgeting uncomfortably.

With a sigh, I picked up my fork and started eating once more.

* * *

Her sister had been so. cool.

She'd had the sudden impulse to hug her as much as possible, ignoring the fact that there had been a table between them.

She'd managed to control herself, though. Barely.

But Taylor's powers were finally starting to show up!

Granted, it _may_ have been because of that bitch who had the name she'd wanted, instead of like, that one family with the laser-stuff, but it was still awesome!

And she'd already made a friend and her first day wasn't even over! Take that, David!

Emma was so messed up she might not even need the um, _talk_ that Sera had planned to have with her. Sophia might, though, with the way Sera'd seen her glaring at Taylor in the halls between third and fourth period.

And then there was that _cunt_ Julia who thought it would be a good idea to attack her sister! Taylor had taken care of it, at least for now, but maybe she should make… _plans_ to deal with that.

She hated how she couldn't use her obvious abilities at the school, and thus couldn't help Taylor as much, but she also knew that was probably for the best.

Taylor had to learn how to face stuff head-on. Solve problems directly and all that. Stand up for herself. _Every_ problem could be solved with sufficient amounts of force, after all.

Of course, that was more Taylor's thing. She preferred subtlety and finesse. Brushstrokes on the canvases of minds. Butterflies to hurricanes.

Not that she could even do that as she was, stupid Queen. Then again, also probably for the best. Taylor _probably_ wouldn't appreciate her making friends for her.

No. Definitely not.

Oh, well.

School was exciting. So many people and so much chaos. She probably could have sat down on a chair in the hallway and watched everybody for hours and not get bored. Teenagers were so ruled by their emotions. …Not that she could point any fingers. She had them too, and she loved it, even the ones that weren't so great.

Nine years, all still sharp and clear, and yet they paled in comparison to what she'd experienced in the past three days. As though she could finally see color, where everything before had been black and white. Cliché, but true nonetheless.

(And okay yes she technically hadn't been able to see before, but that's _really_ not the point)

She wasn't at school to learn. She could easily do that on her own. She was there for the experience. And to be closer to Taylor, of course. Highschool drama was legendary, and there was a major difference between just knowing it happened from the minds she touched and actually being there herself.

Besides, four years wasn't so long, and it gave her time to _practice_.

* * *

It was sixth period that I found the source of [out of phase/not there].

It was sixth period that I realized what it meant.

It was sixth period when _Sophia Hess_ walked into the classroom, and I could feel connection hum as soon as I laid eyes on her, still growing, just ever so slightly faster now.

Now, I wish I could say I was ignorant. I wish I could say that I didn't understand the implications. Unfortunately, just like everything else that day, it all fell into place, my mind making connections between seemingly disparate things that were actually connected in a blink.

The way I _knew_ she was the source.

The sense of [intangibility].

Sophia reeling in the hall when I'd blacked out standing up. When I'd _triggered_.

Finding spoiled milk dripping over the things in my locker when I'd gotten a new lock only a week before. Notes and homework stolen. _My mother's flute._

And it all added up, all pointed to a single conclusion that I couldn't deny. Sophia Hess was a parahuman.

My mind blanked.

Yes, I was shocked. Yet at the same time, I wasn't, it was just simply another fact to be filed away.

I tried to keep myself from reacting, but I couldn't help the slight straightening of my spine or the sharp glance I gave her, the ice that trickled through my veins as my heart sped up.

I'll be honest, I only half paid attention that class, because I was trying to stay calm while flickering through what this meant. What it would _mean_.

I hadn't heard of any capes in the area with [intang—], no, _intangibility_ , but I also hadn't been looking. I'd already had computer class that day, which meant I couldn't do any research until I got home to my own computer.

Half-way through the class, around one o'clock, there was a second shift, a second _level_ reached, and I knew I could push objects out of phase and still interact with them without needing to go intangible myself.

When all things were considered, it was rather obvious the connection and my own abilities were related to others' powers, though there seemed to be a proximity and time element. Also, with the way the connection had progressively weakened for a few minutes and then started strengthening again at the end of lunch, it probably wasn't a permanent thing.

I had no idea what good that did.

It was interesting that Sera didn't show up to me, but that also made sense since my powers were ostensibly derived from hers, and so there would be nothing to copy. It was weird how there didn't seem to be any obvious connection between them, though. Telekinetic super-smart precog who can build things, and then _power-using Trump_?

Yeah, no obvious relations there. Maybe I'd just ask her when I got the chance.

I spent the period with my hands clenched under my desk, worried that Sophia had noticed, that she would know something was different. Thankfully, it didn't seem she had, or at least dismissed my tension as remnants of what had happened on Monday.

Some part of me almost _wanted_ her to notice, to react and do something impulsive, so that I'd finally have something to point to, some sort of unquestionable justification.

But that was just my own more impulsive feelings speaking. The part of me that wanted to lash out because _of course_ one of my bullies had powers that let them make my life even _worse_. I pushed it down, trying to focus on the teacher and what she was saying.

The class seemed to drag on, minute by minute, until _finally_ , the bell rang and we were released. I let Sophia leave before me, and instead prepared myself for yet another class with Emma.

At least _she_ didn't have powers. Other than the completely normal one of being a total bitch, of course.

My last class I shared with Madison, but she still made no moves, and I at least found _some_ degree of comfort in that, however tenuous it was.

And then school was over.

I couldn't help the breath of relief I released as the last bell rang. I kept my eyes peeled for any of the usual girls who bothered me as I made my way to my locker, but the couple I saw only glanced at me before quickly looking away.

Were they… _scared_?

I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Like, it would keep them off my back, I guess, but was _fear_ really the way it should be done?

I pushed it out of my mind as soon as I saw Sera waiting for me at my locker.

"Hey Taylor!"

"Hey."

She blinked. "Is something wrong? You got really nervous in the period after lunch."

I swallowed. "I…" I shut my mouth trying to think about how to put it. "Yeah. I… found something out. We can talk about it at home."

She nodded, smiling. "Okay then."

I moved some of my books from my bag to my locker and then shut it, locking it. Not that that would do much good, now that I knew how everything had been happening.

"How was your day?" I asked.

Her smile widened into a grin. "It was great! I met so many new people, and I think I'm making friends with some of them."

"Well that's…" _terrifying_ "…good," I finally settled on, at least trying to keep my thoughts to myself.

How would people even _react_ to the thought that 'oh hey, that nice new girl you're friends with in Geometry is actually the Simurgh'?

With lots of screaming, I suspected.

I sighed, praying to any deity that might listen that this wasn't going to end in flames and screaming.

"You ready to go home?" I asked.

Sera nodded. "Yep!"

I gave her a small smile, the two of us wordlessly heading towards the school entrance and the bus station that would take us home.

And I realized, almost sadly, that even with everything I'd discovered and the worries I had, this had still been one of the best days of high school I'd ever had.

* * *

 **A/N:** This chapter brought to you by _This Gift_ by the Sons and Daughters, my Model F keyboard, and Sera's hilarious propensity for being a terrifying ( _cough eldritch abomination cough_ ) teenage girl.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

The ride home was spent in somber silence, Sera seeming to pick up that I wasn't really in the mood to talk, rather thinking (angsting) over the revelations of the day.

Scales. Powers. School. Strength. Sophia.

I still wasn't sure about the first. Sera's wing-and-feather tracery was obviously a reflection of being the Simurgh. But if that was true, what did the scales mean for me? Why did Sera have her patterns when I had a feeling it would have been just as easy for her to have perfectly normal —albeit extremely pale— skin?

How was it related to my powers? Because obviously it was related _somehow_ or I wouldn't have them.

And then there was how easy school had been, the way my mind felt like it was on overdrive and I could remember the entire day perfectly, things just… _making sense_. It was like the difference between a database on a computer instead of a library with a physical card catalog. Was this another part of what Sera had meant?

I had a lot of questions, and I could clearly feel the bubble of concern in the back of my head from Sera as she glanced at me every few minutes. She was right. This link or whatever _was_ getting stronger. And noticeably quick.

She was huddled into my side the entire trip home, and I could feel her warmth, the movement of her breathing and even (slightly) her heartbeat, the human _softness_ belying her durability and strength.

I had to wonder what we were now. Two of a kind, but two of a kind of _what?_

Was it any wonder she considered me her sibling when there was nothing else like us out there and she had been _recreated_ just to be like this, to be with me?

Along with that was everything that was coming with it. I couldn't help but think of Sera's strength the day I'd met her: that single finger flicked against my forehead, the way my head wouldn't have just broken, but literally _exploded_ from the force… were I not as durable as I now was.

If I'd had that, I could have accidentally crushed Julia's forearm into paste. Instead, she'd only been left with a rather dark bruise.

I was more glad than ever that Sera had convinced the ' _shard_ ' behind our powers to give this to me gradually.

Finally, Sophia.

Sophia, Sophia, Sophia. Even when I thought I managed to escape their shit by becoming a parahuman—or _whatever_ the hell it was Sera and I counted as—it seemed I couldn't.

Because Sophia _fucking_ Hess was right there along with me.

I still had them, too. Her powers. They were slipping away, as she wasn't within my apparent range anymore, but I could still use them.

I felt a hand on my forearm and blinked, looking around and then realizing with a start that Sera and I were already at our stop.

Was it going to be like this every day? Going to school, gaining Sophia's powers, and having them disappear in the hours afterwards?

More things to get out of Sera.

We walked home in silence, neither of us saying anything as I unlocked the door and opened it for her, following after she'd crossed the threshold.

"Ask me."

I turned around to look at Sera, having locked the door and deadbolt behind us after entering.

"What?"

She huffed, her arms coming up and crossing in front of her. " _Ask me_. You've practically been radiating discomfort and worry and dread curiosity for the past thirty minutes." The pale girl bit her lip and looked away. "I can't… You're blocking me out and I know it's about me and there are questions but that's _it_ so just, just _ask_. Please."

…That bubble of concern in the back of my head? It was positively laced with anxiety now.

I sighed, moving into the living room, my backpack slung down to the floor as I sat on the couch. "It's not _you_ ," I corrected, wanting to make that clear from the start. This _wasn't_ her fault. Not directly. In some ways, you could say it was mine for triggering and causing all of this.

The anxiety started to smooth out as she moved to sit at the other end of the couch. "What is it, then?"

I let out a breath, trying to decide on the order to do this, and decided to start with what seemed like the simplest. "School felt… easy. _Really_ easy. Is that because of…?"

She nodded hesitantly. "That's Bastion. Or, well, what Queen's doing that it copied from it."

"And that would be…?" I asked.

Sera shifted uncomfortably. "Um." She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it, looking away again. She swallowed, and I heard a quiet, "I _hate_ this."

With another breath, storm-grey eyes came up to meet mine. "Alexandria."

Wait. What did Alexandria have to do with how easy schoo—?

My eyes went wide. Oh. _Oh_. Well. Um. That was a bit… overwhelming.

"Why?"

Her discomfort came back. "Because everything has trade-offs," she said quietly, before looking at me intently. "Do you remember when I said what I was like before? Practically just a bunch of shards without any real sapience?"

I nodded.

"There are limits to what the human brain can handle. That's what the shards do: handle all the fiddly bits of what a power is while humans direct them. And when a power is really tightly integrated with a person, the line between where the person ends and where the shard begins is… blurred. It's more obvious for some capes than others. 'Breakers', especially." She watched me carefully, her eyes flitting between mine, but when I didn't say anything, she forged ahead. "How do you think people can still think when they're nothing more than light or wind or fire?"

And just like everything else that day, it clicked.

How would a person think if they didn't have a brain? It was universally agreed that their power somehow let them do that, in some way, and that's _exactly_ what happened. Just… significantly more literal than might be expected. People could think when they physically shouldn't be able to because the things that managed their powers were so _ridiculously powerful_ , that they were even able to act as the substrate for their users' mind in place of their brain.

"…Shards."

She nodded. "Shards."

I had to sit back a bit at that and take a few moments. It all somehow came back to the overpowered alien supercomputers, didn't it?

"…And Alexandria?"

"Because out of _all_ the capes out there that came from Mom, she's the most similar to us," Sera said, pouting a little, "at least like this. It's kind of annoying, actually. Like, out of everybody, it had to be _her_? But yeah! Queen's actually doing _everything_ , not just part of it, but it's basically the same 'cause Bastion was still the best example. Oh and it's also kinda a safety thing because dying isn't allowed anymore."

Al…right. I supposed I could get behind that. Dying would not be good.

 _(No one left. No Mom. No Dad. Just me. Just me.)_

I turned over everything I'd gained in my head for a minute, before focusing back on the other issues I had.

"So um. What about my powers?"

Sera sat up straight, all signs of her previous melancholy gone and replaced by a huge grin. "Do you like them? I thought you would! It took _so_ much convincing for Queen to agree how to do it."

I blinked. "I… guess? I haven't really gotten to _do_ anything yet. But you said that your powers and mine are coming from the same place. How is _psychic Tinker_ related to power-sponge Trump?"

She got a glint in her eyes. "Did you even notice? The way you reacted at lunch? You didn't move in reaction to that girl, you moved _before_ her."

"…Precognition?"

Sera nodded. "Mine's like sonar. Ping! See the feedback. Ping! Make it clearer. Ping! Refine again." She frowned. "Actually no, but kinda. Um. It's more like… getting to know someone so well that you know what they're thinking and what they're going to do before they do it. I learn people's pasts, and that lets me figure out their future and how to change it. To see further forward, I have to see more _behind_ them. The further back, the longer it takes. For you, it's instantaneous. You don't need to see back because there's no need to see how to change their futures. It's focused on _you_."

There was suddenly a magazine hurtling off the table towards my face, but my hand was already there to catch it mid-air before it hit me.

"See?"

I nodded mutely.

"But yeah. That's where my Sight went: to you. Even if it's not as powerful now."

"You gave it to me?" She'd given up one of her strongest abilities, the thing that made her so feared, because of _me_? " _Why?_ "

Sera tucked a loose strand of white hair behind her ear. "It was part of my agreement with Queen. Knowing everything about someone, about what's going to happen…" She shook her head. "I do miss it, sometimes it would make things _so_ much easier, but now everything is _new_." She gave me a radiant smile. "Besides, why wouldn't I want you to have it?"

I swallowed, a sudden lump in my throat.

"And the telekinesis? The telepathy? The _screaming_?"

She winced at the last one. "That's just stimulating neurons in peoples' heads. Not that hard. At least, not the way I was. Now… now I just know how people around me feel, and I can't mess with peoples' bodies anymore or communicate with them. Queen's link is the only reason we can do that. The telekinesis, well, _I've_ still got it, obviously. For you…" Her grin came back. "I'll let you figure that out! But I promise it's good."

"What about the Tinkering? How are you a Tinker when I'm a _Trump_?" I asked.

Sera just stared at me. "Taylor. Do you know why Tinkers and Thinkers were the worst to go up against me?"

I frowned, trying to remember. "Because you could co—" My eyes widened. "Because you could copy what they could do."

She nodded. "The longer they were around me, the further back my Sight reached for them, the better I could use their abilities and powers against them."

That… was almost _exactly_ how my connection had worked today. No, it wasn't almost, it _was_ exactly how it had gone.

"That's still how it works, too. My range isn't as wide any more, just a couple miles or so. All of my Tinkering in the past few days is because Archive is surprisingly close by," she said, looking thoughtful. "But yeah! You've got the other side now! The peanut butter to my jelly! The knife to my fork! The fury to my sound!—"

"…The power to your knowledge. The brawn to your brain," I concluded. "The shield to your sword."

Her grin was sharp, a predatory thing that somehow looked just as home as the innocent smile she'd given minutes before. " _Yes._ "

God, we really were a pair, weren't we?

So apparently I connected to physical abilities the way she did with mental ones, if I was understanding everything right.

"The scales?" I prompted.

Her expression eased. "Ah… Can that be a surprise? I promise it's nothing bad, though!" she said at my incredulous look.

Well, if she was _that_ heartfelt about it. And I didn't really mind them so much now that it seemed like nobody else was going to notice them at school, with how hard they were to see already. "Okay."

She smiled. "Thanks!"

There was only one thing left, the one I'd been putting off because I didn't like thinking about it.

"One of my—" Bullies? Enemies? Annoyances? Aggressors? I tried to think of the right way to word it. "One of the people who made me trigger is a parahuman," I said, and realized it wasn't a question, because I didn't need answers, I just needed to _say_ this. To get it off my chest. "I… I thought this would make me different, that would make me better than them, but _nope_." Angry tears began welling up in my eyes. "One of them has to ruin that too."

Sera stood up and walked over, sitting next to me, her shoulder touching mine as she took my left hand in hers and gently squeezed it.

"I-I can't understand. _Why_? She has _powers_ , why would she need to pick on other people?"

"Powers… powers don't usually fix problems," Sera said quietly. "They actually make them worse, most of the time." I turned to her in surprise, and she looked up to meet my eyes, hazel to grey. "You… _We_ are a bit different in that way. We got lucky. For you, a normal trigger in that situation would have given you something like a projection. That still wouldn't make it easier for you to connect to normal people, though, and likely you'd have withdrawn further, connecting only with what your power provided in an effort to hold on to what you _did_ have."

That… painted a rather grim and disturbingly realistic picture, because I could see it happening exactly like she described.

"Powers bring out the best and the worst in people," she said, looking away. "What else would you expect from giving traumatized people preternatural abilities? Every single cape that triggers has gone through a moment where they were crushed down so hard that they just… broke. Some people have an easier time picking up the pieces and putting them back together than others. Some don't even try.

"People are people. People with powers are just people… with powers. Horrible, good, selfish, kind, ambitious, paranoid, sadistic… Powers only make those things more obvious, like turning up the contrast on a screen. People don't act better or worse _because they have powers_ , they act better or worse because that's who they are."

"…Basically, Sophia's always been a sadistic bitch, is what you're saying. And it doesn't matter if she's a cape or not because it doesn't change the fact that she's a bitch," I summed up.

My sister shrugged, and we sat quietly for the next few minutes, leaning on each other and taking comfort in that closeness.

"Can I at least control which powers I'm getting?" I asked, breaking the silence. "Like, not taking them if I don't want them?"

" _You_ can, I think. Your range is smaller but you can control who you're picking up. My range is a bigger, but I can't pick and choose who I'm getting things from. I thought it would be easy to handle, but then…"

"Tinkering," I said, thinking of the first evening she was here, and what I'd come home to.

She gave a weak nod, a slight flush rising on her cheeks.

"Powers come with a drive to _use_ them, and it looks like I pick that up from people too. I've never gotten distracted like that before. I didn't know I got that alongside the power," she admitted, turning to look at me. "I'm pretty sure you don't."

I hadn't felt anything like that, at least not from the line I'd had to Sophia's power, but my _own_ …

The thing coiled within me was back to the way it had been before school: tightly wound and sleeping, but somehow I knew that was only temporary. Eventually—tomorrow, the next day, next week, the week after—it would wake up and _stay_ awake, and I had no idea what that would mean.

All I knew was that things were changing, and the only person who could understand was my sister.

"It'll still be a few days until everything settles for you and Queen stops holding back, but that's not too long," Sera said.

Right. I needed to practice my strength to make sure I wouldn't accidentally out myself or anything.

I nodded in acknowledgment. "Is there anything you want to do before I have to go to work?"

"Not really," she told me.

Neither of us made any motions to move from where we were, just sitting there, together, until I had to get up to leave for work.

It was nice.


End file.
